Lessons not Learnt: New report on 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections The last nine years have witnessed three general elections, a nationwide referendum and no less than five prime ministers. At times our politics has felt chaotic, and the output of the Westminster electoral system has... Posted 23 Jan 2024
First past the post distorts public opinion on small boats Last week’s YouGov MRP poll showing Labour on course for a 1997-style general election victory created a big splash. In addition to asking about people’s general election voting intention, YouGov asked respondents about their views... Posted 22 Jan 2024
ERS in the Press – January 2024 Despite being one of our country’s shortest ever Prime Ministers Liz Truss dominated the headlines over the festive period. The ERS press team were ready and waiting to get our arguments around the House of... Posted 18 Jan 2024
Changing boundaries shouldn’t change election results For the past 30 years, political scientists Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have been investigating how new boundaries will impact the political makeup of Parliament. Whenever new constituency maps are designed, they estimate what the... Posted 16 Jan 2024
140 years of winning electoral reform On a chilly evening exactly 140 years ago, a diverse group gathered at 7 Clarges Street, Westminster. Brought together by the Victorian naturalist, archaeologist and polymath Sir John Lubbock, it was clear to them that the... Posted 16 Jan 2024
The Non-Battleground Election: Millions of voters are ignored Last week, the Labour Party started the process of selecting their general election candidates for 211 ‘non-battleground’ constituencies in England. The description of these seats as being ‘non-battleground’ is telling, implying that Labour will not... Posted 18 Dec 2023
The top 5 most-read ERS articles from 2023 Every year we have a look through the stats to see which of our articles were the most popular with readers in the year coming to a close. So if you missed them the first... Posted 14 Dec 2023
Strong government vs good government? First Past the Post means our governments will always fail to deliver Government failures are always in the news, but we rarely question why it is that our governments often seem so wholly incapable of delivering on their objectives. It’s easy to point at individual ministers and... Posted 30 Nov 2023
2023 at the ERS: Party conference season report Each year we write an Annual Report which looks back at our achievements across the last 12 months, and explains how our team have campaigned towards securing our vision for a democracy fit for the... Posted 30 Nov 2023
2023 at the ERS: How we’ve worked with other organisations Each year we write an Annual Report which looks back at our achievements across the last 12 months, and explains how our team have campaigned towards securing our vision for a democracy fit for the... Posted 29 Nov 2023