Just 401 votes away from securing a Tory majority and avoiding chaos

If Prime Minister had won over a small number of the electorate in tightest seats, all would be different

THERESA MAY would have retained her Parliamentary majority if she had persuaded just 401 more people to vote Conservative, an analysis by The Daily Telegraph has found.

Mrs May needed eight more MPS to reach the 326 required for an overall majority in the Commons.

Because many constituencies were won and lost on tiny majorities – one seat was won by two votes – a few hundred extra votes in certain seats would have given a different election result.

Mrs May reminded voters throughout the campaign that “every single vote counts” but she could not have known just how right she would prove to be.

In the eight constituencies with the smallest margin over second-placed Tories, the combined majority was 786.

Therefore, had the Conservatives convinced 401 more people across these eight constituencies, out of a total national electorate of around 32 million, Theresa May would still have her majority in Parliament. Mrs May would have had to win over half of those who voted Labour in the tightest marginals, plus one extra vote to get her candidate over the line.

The closest seat she missed out on was Kensington, which Labour took from the Conservatives by 20 votes. If the Tories had persuaded just 11 Labour voters to stick with them they would have held one more extra seat in Parliament.

The eight closest seats that the Conservatives missed out on were all won by Labour except for Perth & Perthshire North, which the SNP’S Pete Wishart held with a majority of just 21.

The closest-run race of all was in North East Fife, where the SNP’S Stephen Gethins won a majority of just two votes, beating the Liberal Democrats into second place.

Under the first past-the-post system, in which the party with the most MPS wins power rather than the party with the most overall votes, there can be large discrepancies in the vote share and seat share for each party. For example, the Conservative Party won 48.9 per cent of the seats in Parliament with 42.5 per cent of the national vote.

For Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, gaining a majority would have meant winning around 52,000 more votes in the right places.

With 262 seats, Labour was 64 seats short of an overall majority in Parliament.

The majorities of the 64 closest seats where Labour came second total 103,550 votes – meaning that Labour

By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn would have needed 52,000 more votes to secure a majority

would have had to persuade half of those people to vote for them.

The SNP was the most efficient party in turning votes into seats.

Nicola Sturgeon’s party needed on average just 27,930 votes for each of the 35 seats they claimed in Parliament. This was because the SNP’S vote is concentrated in a small geographical area compared to other parties.

For example, the Green Party secured just one seat for the 525,371 votes it gained nationwide. This is more than half the number of total votes that the SNP received.

Labour needed 49,139 votes for each of the 262 seats it claimed in the election, while the Conservatives needed 42,979 – this is because Labour’s vote is concentrated in their urban strongholds such as London, Liverpool and Manchester.

The 37 constituencies with the largest vote share for the winner were all won by Labour, with the vote shares all more than 70 per cent.

A total of £780,000 was lost in deposit money. In order to stand in a general election, candidates must forward a deposit of £500, which they lose if they do not secure at least five per cent of the votes in the constituency. Nearly half of all candidates in the election, 1,561 out of 3,304, lost their deposits.

Of the Green Party’s 467 candidates, all but 11 lost their deposit.

The Liberal Democrats have the next largest bill, at £185,500, with Ukip losing £168,000.

The least successful candidate, Bobby Smith, an independent in Theresa May’s Maidenhead constituency, received just three votes.