When democracy gives way to shamocracy

The dust is settling on Thursday's elections and it's becoming increasingly obvious that the first past the post system has got to change.

It is absolutely indefensible that 1 in 8 votes went to UKIP yet there will only be one UKIP MP taking the oath of allegiance next week when the SDLP will have three MPs after securing just 2.57% of the number of votes UKIP did and the SNP will have 56 MPs from two and a half times fewer votes.

Party	Votes	%	MPs	Votes per MP
Conservative	11,334,920	36.9%	331	34,244
Labour	9,344,328	30.4%	232	40,277
UKIP	3,881,129	12.6%	1	3,881,129
Lib Dem	2,415,888	7.9%	8	301,986
SNP	1,454,436	4.7%	56	25,972
Green	1,181,694	3.7%	1	1,181,694
DUP	184,260	0.6%	8	23,033
Plaid	181,694	0.6%	3	60,566
UUP	114,935	0.4%	2	57,468
SDLP	99,809	0.3%	3	33,270

If the other parties had to secure as many votes per MP as UKIP did they would still be counting the 2.5bn votes for the foreseeable future but the House of Commons would be pretty empty if their MPs cost the same number of votes as UKIP's did with just 7 MPs sitting on the famous green benches.

Party	UKIP votes needed for MPs	MPs by UKIP votes
Conservative	1,284,653,699.00	3
Labour	900,421,928.00	2
UKIP	3,881,129.00	1
Lib Dem	31,049,032.00	1
SNP	217,343,224.00	0
Green	3,881,129.00	0
DUP	31,049,032.00	0
Plaid	11,643,387.00	0
UUP	7,762,258.00	0
SDLP	11,643,387.00	0

First past the post just isn't working, it is disenfranchising millions of voters. It's hard to calculate how many MPs each of the parties would have got under a system of proportional representation but as a rough guide by allocating MPs by vote share things would have been a little more balanced.

Party	MPs under PR
Conservative	242
Labour	200
UKIP	83
Lib Dem	52
SNP	31
Green	25
DUP	4
Plaid	4
UUP	2
SDLP	2

UKIP should join the Electoral Reform Society's campaign for electoral reform not out of self-interest but the national interest. The electoral system we have now is a sham. It's not democracy, it's a shamocracy. If we are to have a government that represents everybody and not the biggest minority then we need some form of proportional representation.

My AV vote dilemma.

The First Past The Post system is one which needs to be put out of its misery, killed, finished. It is hopelessly outdated in an era where many constituents don't need to live down the road from their MP to be able to contact them and follow their work thanks to the advent of the internet. It is also hopelessly unrepresentative, as illustrated by the last General Election where much smaller parties got MPs, while UKIP with nearly 1,000,000 votes still has zero representation in the House of Commons.

It would be logical for me then to vote "yes" to the Alternative Vote in next year's referendum, yes? Well hang on. AV is a preferential system, not a proportional one. On the other hand, those who seem to be running the "no" campaign seem to be largely Conservative advocates of FPTP.

I am in neither of these camps. I don't like AV and I don't like FPTP. So the question I have to ask is, would a "yes" vote open up the flood gates and make the possibility of further PR reform possible, or would it simply serve politicians to turn around and say "job done, PR secured"? Would it effectively be used to kill off the argument for full PR, as it would have supposedly been secured?

On the other hand, a "no" vote against AV will be used many to justify the view that their is no wide appetite among the British public for electoral reform or proportional representation. It could set the case for those who want genuine PR back many years again.

Which camp am I in? I'm still not quite sure, and I doubt I'm alone.

Graham Dines: Don't be afraid of the Greens, UKIP and yes the BNP: it's time for pluralism

Graham Dines, political correspondent for the East Anglian Daily Times (one of the few remaining independent-minded newspaper titles in England), says that it would be "refreshing" to have UKIP MPs in Westminster.

He also makes the point that I have made many, many times about the BNP (and to a lesser extent UKIP) that whether or not a political party suscribes to the mainstream agenda, if people vote for them then they have a right to take part in the democratic process and the LibLabCon have an obligation to allow them to without undue hinderance.

Don't be afraid of the Greens, UKIP and yes the BNP: it's time for pluralism

I'M contemplating a flying visit to Norwich to see if there is by-election fever. I suspect not. There's 12 candidates standing, with six no-hopers as well as the Big Six - Tory, Labour, Liberal Democrat, UKIP, Green, and BNP.

The UK is becoming a pluralist society. That's why I include UKIP, Green, and BNP among the big hitters. However, without proportional representation, the chances of any of them being elected at a General Election is just about zero. It would take an exceptional local campaign for any of them to make it.

So do we introduce PR and risk the election of the BNP to seats in Westminster? No one should attempt to control democracy, and if enough people back the BNP, that is democracy, no matter how much we might regret it.

And how refreshing it would be to have Green and UKIP MPs striding around the corridors of Westminster. I reckon around a fifth of the electorate would like to see the back of the European Union. Again, establishment politics might tut and fret, but that 20% deserve to have their voices heard in Parliament.

For too long, the Commons has been a cosy club of political consensus. And it's for that reason that I'm coming around to supporting PR as part of a comprehensive updating of Parliament, democracy, and above all, the constitution.

I have asked, in the interests of balance, if Dines might like to include a pro-UKIP blog in his list of political blog sites rather than just the "UKIP Watch" blog run by an anti-UKIP fruitcake. He does, after all, list Iain Dale in his list of blogs who would vote for a single-celled amoeba if it was wearing a tiny, tiny blue rosette. It's only fair.

Whether proportional representation (PR) is the best way of running an election is open to debate. In broad terms I would say yes but there are many variations of proportional variation, some better than others. It would certainly give smaller parties a better chance of getting people elected and in combination with an elected Prime Minister with a cabinet appointed on a PR basis, it would make government more representative.

It would, though, be at the expense of strong government and with escalating tensions between the four nations of the UK, we could have a similar situation that the Belgians had recently where they went six months without a government before the King banged a few heads together and got a caretaker coalition government in for a few weeks to tidy up some loose ends. Which might not be such a bad thing after all ...