The electoral system: all a question of geography

The outcome of the 2024 election (see Table 1) broke many a psephological record. The Conservatives sunk to their smallest ever share of the Britain-wide vote (24.4%) and lowest ever tally of seats (121, 20 fewer than the 141 the party won in Great Britain in 1906). Labour secured an overall majority while winning just 34.7% of the vote across Great Britain (and 33.8% across the whole of the UK). Never before had a party secured an overall majority on so low a share of the vote, let alone one as big as 174 - the previous low was the 36.1% of the vote (35.2% across the UK) that delivered Labour a majority of 66 in 2005. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats secured their highest tally of seats (72) since 1923 (when the then Liberal Party won 158 seats) even though, at 12.6%, the party’s share of the vote was lower than at all elections between February 1974 and 2010. At the same time, in England a record total of 14 candidates standing either for other parties or as an independent secured election, beating the previous record of eight in 1918. Indeed, despite a sharp fall in the Scottish National Party’s representation (from 48 to 9), the success of the Liberal Democrats and other smaller parties ensured that as many as 117 third-party MPs were elected across the UK as a whole, also the highest number since 1923.