General Election Voting Question

[SimpyTimpy]

I've got a question about how the voting intentions for the upcoming General Election are calculated.

 

Below is a cutout from Business Week

 

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Nick Clegg, who leads Britain’s third-biggest party, surged in four opinion polls, with one putting him in the lead, increasing the chances that no one will win a majority in the nation’s May 6 election.

 

Following a televised debate April 15, Clegg’s popularity jumped 12 percentage points to 32 percent, ahead of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron, according to a survey by BPIX. In polls by YouGov Plc, ComRes Ltd. and ICM, Cameron held the lead, though by a narrower margin than before.

 

Because of the uneven distribution of votes, if the poll results were repeated on May 6, Brown would have the biggest bloc in Parliament. In the estimate by BPIX, Labour would have 267 seats, against 230 for the Conservatives and 121 for the Liberal Democrats.

 

It states that the Liberal Democrats have been polled as being the overall favourite in one opinion poll, and at or around 29% on other polls.

 

My question relates to how - with similar support to both the Conservatives and Labour - such support would only equate to 121 seats in Parliament.

[Wildcat]

It is quite simply because of where the voters are.

 

The libdem vote is spread fairly evenly across the country. Whilst Labour tends to be strong in cities and Tories in rural areas.

[Cyclone]

Hence why the LD's are in favour of proportional representation.

[SimpyTimpy]

Ah OK, thanks, it was one of those things that I had a few ideas as to why, just wasn't sure

 

I quite like the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg once came into our Politics lesson at A level (there was only 6 of us taking the course...shock) and spoke to us for about an hour about politics and Parliament. Great, genuine guy. Just hope power doesn't corrupt him