Hertfordshire is traditionally a Conservative county. No other party has controlled the county council in the last 50 years. They had the largest vote share in every general election from 1974 to 2019, and for nine years this century all the county’s MPs were Conservatives. However, like other home counties, Hertfordshire has seen an influx of people moving out of London, bringing with them rather more left wing politics, and a rise in support for parties of the broad left – Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green.
And now Hertfordshire is demonstrating some weaknesses of our first past the post (FPP) electoral system, and providing one of a growing number of testbeds for coalition government.
Conservative parliamentary collapse
In the 2024 general election, following a national collapse in support, the Conservative parliamentary vote share across the 12 Hertfordshire constituencies fell to its lowest level ever. Scraping fewer than 400 votes more than Labour across the county, they lost seven of their eleven MPs.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat vote share, which had collapsed in 2015 following the experience of the coalition government, recovered, reaching 19%. And Liberal Democrats have been building real strength in some areas. In 2019 they took control of St Albans District Council, and won their first MP there. In 2024 they added a second MP in Harpenden & Berkhamsted. Across the East of England they now lead 13 of the 50 councils.
Liberal Democrats take control of the County Council
In this month’s County Council election, Reform UK split the right wing vote. As a result, the Conservatives lost control of the Council, and the Liberal Democrats took both the largest vote share and the largest number of seats. But, with 40 seats needed for a clear majority, their 31 fell short of control. But since Conservatives and Reform together only muster 36 councillors, the most likely outcome is some sort of Liberal Democrat led coalition with Labour and Greens.
A disproportionate result
When there are more than two main parties in an election, FPP elections produce some strange results. This is very evident here, where three parties were in serious contention.
Across the whole county, the difference in votes between the three leading parties was less than half of one percent of the total. Although the Liberal Democrats’ 25.96% was the largest, the Conservatives were only 345 votes behind on 25.84%. And, on 24.05%, Reform UK was also close. And of course, a turnout of only 32% means that no party had support from more than 9% of those eligible to vote.
But county-wide vote share is not really the point. People vote for individual candidates in wards, not for the county council as a whole, so it matters where the votes are cast. And, as usual with FPP elections, the leading party gets a disproportionate share of the seats, and the smallest are squeezed. This worked for the Liberal Democrats. Because their voters were better distributed, their 26% of the votes won them 40% of the seats, as the table shows. The final column shows how many seats they would have won on a strictly proportional county wide basis.
Would proportional representation be better?
Advocates of proportional representation (PR) argue that a system where results are closely tied to vote share is more democratic, and more likely to command public confidence, which is currently in short supply.
In reply, supporters of first-past–the-post elections argue that precisely because a small majority of votes gives a party a disproportionately large share of seats, it produces a government with a clear working majority, able to deliver what the largest number of voters voted for.
They point to the complex process of negotiating coalition governments in proportional systems. Under PR, you may vote for a party, they claim, but after the election, that party may trade away the policies that you voted for, to get seats at the coalition table. And it can produce strange results. Which policies will the Germans get from their grand coalition of parties of left and right, united only in order to exclude the AfD, who came second. And a more extreme example is Israel, where small, extreme, parties can hold the government to ransom.
An ironic outcome
But, ironically, despite the gulf between vote share and seat share, Hertfordshire has now given us precisely the kind of coalition that proportional systems create. To govern, the Liberal Democrats must seek the support of Labour and Greens. Together they won 48.9% of the votes. So, they now have to find common ground with those other parties, just as would happen under proportional representation. Nationally this is a growing pattern in local government, with a third of councils under no overall control.
Major parties have resisted proportional representation for fear that it gives a foothold to extreme minority parties. That was, ironically, precisely how the proportional system used for European Parliament elections gave UKIP a political base. But now that national support for Reform means it is no longer a minority party, it is gaining the advantage previously reserved for Labour and Conservatives. And as a result, pressure for change to PR is likely to grow in the mainstream parties.
Local elections are now providing a growing testbed for coalition government in a multi-party democracy. Perhaps these experiments will help us understand the strengths and weaknesses of alternative models, and consider whether, and how, we want to change.
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