Want to get the government you voted for? Try living in London or the Midlands

One of the reasons often given by the Yes Campaign in favour of independence is that the current system means Scotland has had "Tory-led governments we didn't vote for".

The House of Commons Library has looked into the context of the claim today.

It's taken the last 15 general elections since 1955 and compared the party with the majority of MPs in each region/country to the party/parties in government at the time.

[caption id="attachment_34714" align="alignnone" width="977"] Source: House of Commons Library[/caption]

Unsurprisingly, the areas traditionally associated with a single party are less in line with national changes - for example, the North East and West have consistently voted for Labour even when the party hasn't made it into government.

Unlike the Midlands and London, Scotland has consistently elected a majority of Labour MPs since 1959.  The only exception in the period looked at by the Library was 1955 when 51% of seats were Conservative. So the majority of its MPs haven't been from government party(ies).

Of course, it's not the overall area that makes the difference but the marginal constituencies within these (and elsewhere), where the swing of the vote has the most influence on which party ends up in government.