Do these results prove our voting system must change?

Even a cursory examination of the election results shows that Britain's first-past-the-post system produces some spectacularly disproportionate and arguably unfair outcomes.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Reform UK is loudly claiming the system is "broken", while even during the campaign some Conservative commentators raised questions about how governments can wield great power on a comparatively weak mandate.

Who was the biggest winner?

Labour scored about 35 per cent of the popular vote modest by historic standards - but harvested 63 per cent of seats in the House of Commons, and thus also a landslide 174-seat majority. Given the low turnout of 60 per cent, it means only about one in five adult Britons actively voted for Keir Starmer's programme of change. Starmer will be governing the country with just about the lowest share of the vote of any administration since 1923.

Of course, in the British system the point is that Labour's lead over the Conservatives was still very substantial, at 11 per cent, and the two-party swing comparable to Tony Blair's in 1997, and of historic proportions. This is a strength of the system: it forces a choice. (Though both Labour's lead and its vote share were smaller than the polls had indicated.)

How did Labour do it?