If there is one rule in British politics, it is this: Labour politicians rarely look happy. The party has been around for 122 years but has spent only 33 of them in government. Right now, as it holds its annual conference, it is still recovering from four successive election defeats.

But there is an unexpected guest at this conference: optimism. Labour recently soared to a 17-point lead in the opinion polls. The economy is in the gutter. The Conservatives are divided.

And Labour has an exciting new set of policies. It says it will achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030, introduce new mental health support and bring in a slew of new workers' rights. The party is buzzing with energy. This time, it might just win.

However, there is one policy Labour leader Keir Starmer would rather not hear about this conference. On Monday, party members voted to change the country's electoral system from First Past the PostA voting system in which the winner is simply whoever comes first in each area. As such, the winning party almost never has a majority of the vote, and sometimes might even win a smaller share of the vote than its opponent. (FPTP) to proportional representationA voting system in which the winning party gets a proportion of parliamentary seats equal to its proportion of the vote. (PR).

Starmer is likely to ignore the vote. But its supporters have the backing of influential Manchester mayor Andy BurnhamA Labour Party politician and mayor of Greater Manchester since the office was created in 2017.. It could turn into a serious threat to the leader's authority.

So is Starmer wrong to oppose PR? It seems like an obvious move for Labour. Right now, the Conservatives have an in-built advantage. They only need five percent more of the vote than Labour to win a majorityMore than half. in the House of CommonsThe democratically elected house of the UK Parliament. It consists of 650 Members of Parliament. , whereas Labour needs a 12-point lead - something they have only ever achieved once, in 1997.¹

This is because parties do better under FPTP if their voters are distributed evenly across the country. Most of Labour's support, however, is concentrated in urban areas.

PR would also allow smaller parties a greater voice. In the last election, the Liberal Democrats won 11.6% of the vote, yet won only 11 seats - or 1.7% of the total.

The result of these anomalies is that voters often feel their vote does not count for very much. In an average election, there are only about 150 "marginal" constituencies that have a chance of changing hands. Everywhere else, the incumbent will always win.² People living in "safe" seats often feel there is little point in voting.

Under PR, each party would just get a number of seats proportional to their national vote share. Each vote would be worth exactly the same. To many, it seems much more democratic.

But there are problems with PR as well. The first is that no one party would ever be able to govern by itself again. They would have to enter into coalitionsDifferent groups or parties working together to lead. with minor parties. There would be no more chance of radically changing society, as the Labour government elected in 1945 and the Conservative government of 1979 did. And such coalitions are notoriously unstable.

Besides, there is more to democracy than just counting votes. Some think it is a good thing if the parties have to win votes across the country, not just stack them up in their heartlandsThe geographical centre of support for an idea or belief. . Otherwise they will be unable to represent the whole nation.

Yes: FPTP allows the country to be governed by the will of a minority of its populace. It favours the Conservatives and silences smaller parties. It is undemocratic and unfair.

No: PR would deliver a series of unstable governments that would collapse before they had the chance to get anything done. There would be no more radical change.

Or... The reason Labour loses under FPTP is that its voters - younger, more educated - have to live in big cities if they want to get jobs. If we rebalanced the economy, there would be more Labour voters outside cities and votes would be fairer.