Numbers Redux

An update on my previous post about parliamentary numbers. These are the number of ministers:

Cabinet members (23); 18 Tory; 5 LibDem
6 Tories ministers also attend

Minister of State (32); 26 Tory; 6 LibDem

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (33); 28 Tory; 5 LibDem

Whips (non cabinet 5); 3 Tory; 2 LibDem

The LibDems have 57 MPs which is 16% of the coalition MPs. The LibDems have 21% of the main cabinet posts or 17% of the full cabinet. This means that the full cabinet is proportional.

Out of 99 ministers (Secretary of State, Minister of State, Under Secretary of State and whips) 18 are LibDem, this is 18% and clearly they have proportionally more ministerial positions than their overlords, the Tories. If they had ministers in proportion to their number of MPs then they would have 16 ministers.

If you think that the popular vote should be used, then the Tories got 10.8m votes and the LibDems got 6.8m; this means that the LibDems got 39% of the coalition votes, which should give them 38 ministers and 11 full cabinet ministers.

So the next time a LibDem berates you about proportionality you can point out that:

1. Compared to their numbers of MPs they have two too many ministers.
2. Compared to their proportion of the popular vote they have 20 too few ministers and six too few cabinet ministers.

 Either of these points should lead you a good discussion about coalition politics and proportionality.