History and Other links
History
In his excellent article How long have we used first past the post? Doug Cowan from the Electoral Reform Society gives a very good summary of how our voting arrangements evolved.
Among the many things discussed are Rotten Boroughs as summaries by Wikipedia as:
“A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act of 1832, which had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain unrepresentative influence within the House of Commons. The same terms were used for similar boroughs represented in the 18th-century Parliament of Ireland. The Reform Act abolished the majority of these rotten and pocket boroughs.”
And we think things are bad now.
David Klemperer has a brilliant article Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform in Historical Perspective for download at The Constitution Society.
Couple of quotes:
"In April 2011, in the run-up to the Alternative Vote Referendum, then-Prime Minister David Cameron appealed to tradition in his defence of the existing First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system. Arguing that it was 'enshrined in our constitution and integral to our history', he contended that 'First-Past-the-Post isn't just one way of counting votes; it is an expression of our fairness as a country.' [my emphasis] His comments were echoed by the Labour peer Lord Reid, at a time a fellow campaigner against electoral reform, who called FPTP 'the British way', and 'the foundation of our democracy for generations'".
"Electoral Systems in the Post-War Era The immediate post-war decades were the golden age of FPTP. In 1948, a new Representation of the People Act finally imposed it as a uniform system for parliamentary elections across the entirety of the UK, abolishing plural voting and the University constituencies. Over the following years, FPTP went essentially unquestioned: in an era when politics was entirely dominated by two parties, and when the electorate largely voted along class lines, the system seemed to work well, and election results were seen as accurately reflecting the public mood. Even in 1951, when the Conservatives won a majority of seats, despite Labour winning a majority of votes, no complaint was made. Both Labour and the Conservatives saw no need to change the system, and although the Liberals still remained committed to PR, they were barely able to win more than 10% of the vote, or more than a handful of seats."
This continues the theme that FPTP has become totally unsuitable for our expanding political environment despite it being "enshrined in our constitution and integral to our history" - long live Danny Dyer's repeated description of the former UK Prime Minister David Cameron. Perhaps Sir Kir Starmer agrees with Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton?
Other Links
The fruit machine model from The Economist a similar view, but a more sophisticated presentation.
The blog Welcome to the multi-party era by Emma Harrison, Make Votes Matter's CEO, is a very good summary of what's here.
The MVM blog Is First Past the Post a threat to US democracy? is about the challenge to their democracy not from just the ballot and whose on it, but how the votes are counted. It also includes the peripheral attempts to change the system, much like we have done by introducing PR for the devolved parliaments and assembly.
MVM's The Principles of a good electrol system A historic cross-party consensus on Proportional Representation to which many political parties, MPs and campaign organisations have signed up to
Electoral Reform Society's Voting Systems - what are the alternatives to FPTP
The Guardian 26 Dec 25 UK ministers urged to cap political donations Letter from 19 organisations says a cap would help to protect democracy, weeks after £9m donation to Reform UK
The White House Washington November 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States of America and a couple of quotes:
"The United States must also resist and reverse measures such as targeted taxation, unfair regulation, and expropriation that disadvantage U.S. businesses. The terms of our agreements, especially with those countries that depend on us most and therefore over which we have the most leverage, must be sole-source contracts for our companies. At the same time, we should make every effort to push out foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region." (page 18)
"American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history. America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.
Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory." (page 26)
What happened to keeping the American nose out of other countries? Although not describing the "spirit" in “[encourage] Europe to promote this revival of spirit” from passed words and examples we know it’s towards fascism. And as for his sentimental attachment to Britain (p26)
. . . we are a sitting target with our easily manipulated FPTP.
An interesting BBC Radio 4 account of young voters Left Out: the political radicalisation of young women - and the silence surrounding it - young men are tending to vote Reform UK (which we hear a lot about) and women to the Greens (possibly more of them that we hear little about). At the end it talks of politicians and media needing to pay attention to women's political views and that there's no returning to the traditional 2 main parties - and from now things are only going to get weirder.
But why haven’t we got a voting system that takes their views into account?
My article The illusion of ‘one person one vote is a short edited version of my initial ideas that's on Compass on Line.
My article The illusion of 1 person 1 vote - Full verion. is the origin of my ideas here. It's rather long and needs a bit of editing, but expands on the information here and covers all elections since 1974oct to 2019.
