ELECTION OUTCOME UNFAIR ?

After one of the most astonishing General Elections in memory, the Conservatives have won an absolute majority and can run the country their way, that is, if the Scots don't mind.

The admittedly unwritten British Constitution relies on the notion that the government of the United Kingdom sits at Westminster; any party with an absolute majority, or able to build a workable coalition, makes the rules. Unfortunately, the Scottish Nationalists don't understand this and, despite having their own government in Edinburgh and very significant devolved powers, they seem to believe that they should also take a leading role in the running of the Westminster parliament, including voting on matters which only affect England and Wales. The rhetoric of the likes of Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond also makes clear that they intend to create as much disruption as possible in order to encourage agreement to another independence referendum and, they expect, actual independence for Scotland, sooner rather than later. God help the people.

How the Scottish National Party attained their position of apparent influence is, of course, a consequence of the 'first passed the post' voting system. Having gained only 4.7% of the total votes, they've won 56 seats, or 8.6% of the total. Some consider this to be 'unfair', particularly those whose number of seats won was less than their percentage of the total vote, such as the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Greens. Whether or not this is really unfair clearly depends on the viewpoint of the observer and also on what definition one applies to the very vague word 'unfair'. A child will often claim that being refused something they want is 'unfair', while a sports fan may argue that player A has some sort of 'unfair' advantage over player B. In politics, the losers frequently consider it 'unfair' that they didn't win, poor darlings.

The simple facts are that we have the system we have and it's unlikely to be changed in the near future. Neither of the 2 main parties, currently the Conservatives and Labour, are very enthusiastic about changing to proportional representation, the varieties of which are many and confusing, as such systems will tend to work against them. What are existing system does usually produce is majority government and a degree of certainty about the 'direction of travel' for the nation, things which most people, and businesses, prefer over the wishy-washy approach of most coalitions. Long may it continue.