And they call it democracy......!

I have spent a couple of hours trawling through the BBC 2010 election results web site and I think that I have uncovered an appalling sham! Hypothetically I would like to suggest than an MP should not be returned to Westmonster unless he/she can at least claim that 30% of their constituents voted for them. Now let's be fair 30% is not a high figure but if it was applied across the board then the parliamentary Labour party would be all but wiped out!

All I have done is take the percentage of the turnout and then taken the percentage of the vote that each winning candidate got from the turnout. For example if the turnout was 50% and the percentage vote for any person was also 50% they have actually only received 25% of the total electorate.

Now if you apply this to some of the leading personnel the following would not be allowed to take up their seats, Ed Miliband, David Miliband, Ed Balls, Alan Johnson (under 20%) and Yvette Cooper all fail the test although Harriet Harman, Douglas Alexander and remarkably Gordon Brown would return.

For the Coalition David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg all comfortably deserve to represent their constituencies but the real scandal revolves around the turnouts in the Labour dominated industrial connorbations. Turnouts generally hover around the 50% mark and of those voting the Labour candidate will generally win but the percentage of the overall vote is very low.  I suspect it has something to do with mass imigration but it does not in my opinion represent democracy.

They blab on about the AV vote and proportional representation but I think that we should introduce this plumbline. Perhaps the electorate would then take an interest because the choice would be stark...vote or you may not get a representative. I would suggest that huge swathes of inner city areas would be unrepresented but then apathy would have its reward.

Just out of interest I did a quick calculation for Glasgow NE in 2005 which returned Michael Martin the disgraced Speaker. He was returned and recently ennobled when only 16.35% of his constituency actually wanted him as their MP!! Democracy...I don't think so!