James Gilmour: 'First past post' wrong system for Scotland

Published on Thursday 23 June 2011 20:36

BRIAN Monteith has twice recently suggested that the Scottish Parliament would be better elected by the single transferable vote (STV-PR) instead of the present additional member system.

Changing to STV-PR would give better proportionality of the votes, would elect all MSPs on the same basis and would allow the voters, not the parties, to determine which candidates were elected. Such a change would almost certainly have widespread support.

However, Mr Monteith spoils his advocacy in his more recent article by saying his personal preference would be for all 129 MSPs to be elected by first-past-the-post (FPTP). He said "so that Scotland had strong government" – which would be certainly be true.

He went on to say "but with an adequate check" – which is most certainly not true. The results from the constituency elections give us some idea of what such a Scottish Parliament might have looked like.

In 1999 the Labour Party won 72 per cent of the constituency seats for 39 per cent of the votes. In a 129-seat FPTP parliament that would have given the Labour Party 93 MSPs. Strong government it might have been, but without any adequate check.

And there would have been no Conservative MSPs at all. Some might have thought that would have been a good thing, but in terms of democratic representation of the voters it would have been a travesty. Any party that has the support of 15 per cent of the voters should be represented in the Parliament.

In the most recent Scottish Parliament elections, it was the SNP that won 72 per cent of the constituency seats (53) though they had only 45 per cent of the votes. So in a 129 FPTP parliament the SNP would now have 93 MSPs instead of the 69 they actual have. There would be no "adequate check" in that.

Brian Monteith should stick to his first suggestion of STV-PR for the Scottish Parliament and leave FPTP for the dinosaurs at Westminster. It was after all, a PR voting system that saved the Conservative Party in Scotland.

• Dr James Gilmour is a voting reform campaigner.