Analysis of the 2019 election results reveals some interesting facts.

The Conservatives’ largest majority for 30 years, 80 with 365 seats, was achieved with 43.6% of the vote.

In 2017 they achieved only 318 seats, with 42.4% of the vote.

So, with only a 1.2% increase in vote share, they gained an extra 47 seats. Also the 2019 total vote was down, at 67.2%, compared to 68.7% in 2017.

How was their emphatic 2019 victory possible?

The first reason was due to the collapse of the Labour vote, down from 40 % of the vote in 2017, to 32.2% this year.

This resulted in a drop in seats from 262 in 2017 to 203 seats in 2019.

The second reason is because of our first past the post voting system: total seats won are not proportional to total votes cast.

If we had proportional representation (PR), then Conservatives would have won only 283 seats and Labour 209 seats, the later roughly in line with what they actually achieved.

Looking now at the other two parties who stood candidates in almost all constituencies, Liberal Democrats and Greens, we get the following actual seats in 2019 and the (calculated seats with PR) as follows:

Lib Dems: 11 (75 with PR), with 11.5% of the vote.

Greens: 1 (18 with PR), with 2.7% of the vote.

Summarising these calculated PR results gives:

Conservative: 283, Labour: 209, Lib Dems: 75, Green: 18 seats.

This would have delivered a very different election result.

These three opposition parties could then have formed a coalition government with a majority of 19, given their combined total of 302 MPs.

This would contrast starkly to our present parliament, which, once again, nowhere near reflects how the British people voted.

John Tomblin

Littlemoor Road

Weymouth