You've probably heard that, in the recent UK election, the Conservatives won by a huge majority – 80 seats more than the rest put together. Less up-front was the fact that they polled only 43.6 per cent of the votes. Buried in the tables of results was this bizarre nugget: the Scottish Nationalists, with merely 4 per cent of the votes, scooped 48 seats, while the Lib-Dems' 11 per cent pulled in a paltry 11 seats.
Of course, that's democracy, isn't it? Or is it? Most of us, I suspect, think that democracy is "rule by the will of the majority". In the old – the very old – days, when a tribe was deciding (bloodlessly) between its current chief and a challenger, it worked perfectly. It still does, provided that any vote is between just two alternatives. However, those election figures suggest that democracy's no longer so divinely simple.
• Dishonesty and dirty tactics define Britain's election
Checking the current definition I was surprised (but shouldn't have been) to find that nowadays it's "government by the people", with the idea of "majority" very much side-lined, and that there are eight main types of democracy, ranging from "ruling by referendum" to a whisker this side of totalitarianism – plus a mind-boggling plethora of sub-types. Clearly, democracy has been stretched way beyond its design specs.
Quite recently there arose the vexed question of "wasted votes". Why, I'm not sure, because it's always been this way – voting is gambling: to stand a chance of winning, you must back a runner, and if your runner doesn't win, you lose your stake. So, it's no use crying over wasted votes, is it? Unless, perhaps, you have Proportional Representation.