... the major factor in the liberals 'overwhelming' electoral success. The British electoral system is the First Past The Post model, it says that the candidate with the highest number of votes wins, however this can create a situation where a candidate only gains a third of the votes but then represents that constituency. In the 1906 election the Liberals gained 49.5% of the vote but they gained 400 seats in parliament, under a system of proportional representation they would have only gained 285 seats. The "overwhelming" nature of the victory is only accountable to the electoral system, the liberals would have won under a system of proportional representation but they would not have won the "overwhelming landslide". It can be seen and has been noted by psephologists that the Liberal victories were marginal in many seats and the biggest swings against the Unionists came in Unionist heartlands, and this was ...

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