But for Britain's antediluvian electoral system the House of Commons would now comprise around 160 Alliance, 180 Labour and 280 Conservative MPs - and the new books by David Butler and Vernon Bogdanor would have vanished beneath a stampede of eager buyers. As things are, though the distorted election results have robbed them of some of their topicality, they will be very widely and minutely studied by politicians, students of politics and Her Majesty the Queen - or at least by her advisers. All four authors would agree that British politics have entered a new phase which is not simply an ephemeral spasm of protest, and which makes the future uncertain and fascinating; Särlvik and Crewe, as befits men who are operating at the treacherous coalface of voting patterns, show more caution, it is true, but even they see a significant long-term shift among the electorate in the elections of 1970, 1974 and 1979, which 1983 has surely extended still further.

LRB 21 July 1983 | PDF Download