There is a crisis of political legitimacy in both of the countries, Britain and France, in which I have a home. Both countries have an electoral system well-suited to a political life in which there are two overwhelmingly dominant parties: the Conservatives and Labour in Britain, the Gaullists and the Socialists in France.
But when political life fractures or splinters into more factions, each with a considerable number of votes, what results is over-representation in parliament of some parts of the population, and under-representation of others.
This in turn has two major consequences: a large part of the population feels cheated of influence, or completely disregarded, and the leaders of the winning party feel they have a mandate to do anything they wish with the country though they are not in the least approved of.
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Theodore Dalrymple is a contributing editor of City Journal and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
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