Ten Tory MPs with less than 50% of the vote.

It is true that if you were to include the number of potential voters in each constituency, no current Cabinet Minister would have received over 50% of the vote. But with the freedom to vote, comes the freedom to not vote, and with that in mind we should look more closely at the the percentage that current Tory MPs – seeking to impose voter threshold on strike action – managed to win at the 2010 general election, among actual voter turnout.

So here’s a quick list of ten:

Sajid Javid – MP for Bromsgrove and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Minister for Equalities – 43.7%.
– A man who is in control of the state’s involvement in culture, media, sport, and has the key responsibility for equality in the UK, was elected with less than 50% of the vote in Bromsgrove.

David Jones – MP for Clyde West and Secretary of State for Wales – 41.5%.
– A Secretary of State for an entire country, elected with a little over 40% of the vote.

Oliver Letwin – Minister of State at the Cabinet Office and Chairman of the Conservative Party’s Policy Review – 47.6%
– Letwin – after winning less than 50% of the vote – insisted that public sector workers require “discipline and fear”. On a completely unrelated note, Letwin used £2,145 in Parliamentary expenses to fix a leaking pipe on his tennis court.

Mark Garnier – MP for Wyre Forest -36.9%
On his website, speaking of strikes in November 2011, Garnier writes:

“These strikes, which will cost the economy up to half a billion pounds, were not voted for by a majority and will hit ordinary working people hardest.”

– Replace the words “strikes” with “Tories” in this massively ironic statement, and you have a far more honest sentence.

Jessica Lee – MP for Erewash & Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Attorney General Dominic Grieve – 39.5%.

Stephen Mosley – MP for the City of Chester – 40.6%
– On his website, Mosley says:

“The strike action undertaken by PCS union members in June highlighted the unconsidered approach that appears to be the default setting for many unions.
Less than 20% of their members voted for the industrial action and less than half walked out on their responsibilities that day.”

– Interesting admiration for majority votes, when almost 60% of Mosley’s own constituency doesn’t want him representing them.

Nicky Morgan – MP for Loughborough – 41.6%
– Elected with a minority of the vote, and yet voted in an attempt to ensure same-sex couples couldn’t get married. She believes with less than 50%, she gets to regulate the love lives of others.

Edward Garnier – MP for Harborough, Knight Bachelor and former Solicitor General – 49%.

James Morris – MP for Halesowen & Rowley Regis – 41.2%

Paul Uppal – MP for Wolverhampton South West – 40.7%
– Uppal voted in favour of a change to striking laws that would prohibit strikes in the transport sector unless a majority of the workforce voted in favour and not merely a majority of those voting. This same principle, if applied to Parliament, would mean every Cabinet Minister would not have been elected. The closest would have been Theresa May, though she’d still have fell short by 7%.

– If a Conservative Party wishes to impose a 50% voter threshold on strike action, then I see no reason why there should not also be a 50% voter threshold on the ability to propose legislation and vote in Parliament. Indeed, if MPs with less than 50% of the vote in their own constituency can vote to restrict pay and pensions for public sector workers, I see no reason why those same public sector workers can’t then strike with less than 50% of the vote.