A return to normality? How the electoral system operated

At first glance, the 2015 General Election heralded a return to normality. According to its advocates, the single-member plurality electoral system enables the electorate to choose directly between alternative governments by ensuring that whichever party comes first in votes secures an overall majority in seats, even though it may have won much less than half the vote.1 For most of the post-war period that is precisely how it has operated. Now, after a hiatus in 2010, when no one party won an overall majority and the partisan colour of the government was determined by post-election coalition negotiations,2 one party, the Conservatives, was returned with an overall majority despite winning just 37% of the UK-wide vote. Indeed, the party secured a majority even though, at 6.6 percentage points, its lead in votes over the Labour Party (in Great Britain) was 0.6 of a point less than it had been five years previously. The system can apparently be relied upon after all to reward the winning party with enough of a 'bonus' in seats to ensure that it wins an overall Commons majority.