Past Paper Questions

FPTP creates strong governments much more than other more proportional systems, which tend to result in divided and therefore arguably more unstable governments

apart from in 2010 and 2017, recent governments have all been single party and strong

enables them to effectively pass legislation, leaves a party with a clear mandate and outlines accountability

BUT

whilst there is a strong majority produced, it is arguably an inaccurate majority due to things like the winner’s bonus

in 1997, an increase of 8.8% of the vote share resulted in a 22% increase of vote share for Labour

in 2019, Conservatives won 26% vote resulting in 49% of the seat share, 2015 36.9% vote resulted in 50% of the seat share

the strong majorities produced are not actually reflective majorities and thus fail to represent the public in a way that is accurate or democratic

More proportional systems can give rise to the emergence of more extremist views

BNP were elected to the London Assembly in 2008 through the use of AMS

rise of far-right and far-left parties in Europe could be attributed to their use of more proportional systems

BUT

whilst the results of FPTP are relatively effective in preventing extremism, they also exclude third parties at an arguably more significant cost

UKIP won 12.6% vote but only one seat in 2015

Similarly, the greens won over a million votes but only one seat

on average, FPTP creates 2.0 parties, compared to 3.3 under AMS and 4.5 under STV

Comes at a greater cost of failing to represent the public and creating unrepresentative parliaments

FPTP does provide some benefits to UK general elections, particularly in its speed and the simplicity of its process

average time to form a government is two days compared to 40-98 days for European countries who don’t use FPTP (and even 541 days for Belgium once)

removes/limited issue of wasted votes in people being confused e.g. in Scotland in 2007, there were 146,000 wasted ballots as a result of people not understanding the system

Creates fast results via a simple method and doesn’t waste votes through incorrectly done ballots

BUT

it arguably does waste votes because the results aren’t proportional, most crucial issue which undermines the system as a whole

in 2010, Labour and Conservative support combined was only 65%

in 2010, two thirds of MPs didn’t even have a majority in their constituency, and in 2019 a third still did not

there are other simple systems like SV which are in effect very similar but create much more proportional results without wasted votes (e.g. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough)