The British Elections
The Labour Party didn’t lose as badly as it might have, only because the Conservatives [Tories] also supported the Iraq War and wants to do things to the British system that a lot of people don’t like.
Britain is broken into 646 Parliamentary seats and you only have to receive the largest number of votes to win, you do not have to win a majority. Parties vote for their leader, and the leader of the party that wins the most seats is the Prime Minister.
In 2001 Labour won 413 seats with 40.7% of the vote, the Conservatives got only 166 seats for their 31.7%, the Liberal Democrats won 52 seats with 18.3%, and the other parties received 28 seats with 9.3% of the vote. If the British used a proportional system as some European companies do the distribution would have been Labour-263, Conservative-205, Liberal Democrats-118, and others-60 with no parliamentary majority of 324 seats.
In 2005 Labour won 356 seats with 35.2% of the vote, the Conservatives got only 197 seats for their 32.3%, the Liberal Democrats won 62 seats with 22%, and the other parties received 30 seats with 10.5% of the vote. If the British used a proportional system as some European companies do the distribution would have been Labour-227, Conservative-210, Liberal Democrats-142, and others-68 with no parliamentary majority.
In Britain people voted for the party that they perceived as best for their pocket books, despite its foreign policy, even with the majority of 32 seats, Blair is going to have to listen to his back bench to get anything passed.
