America was still fighting for its independence from Britain the last time that the county of Oxfordshire had not a single Conservative MP in Westminster.
The birthplace of Winston Churchill, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough and the home of Jeremy Clarkson, Oxfordshire embodies Middle England in both a geographical and psephological sense, and it was in 1777 when its people last failed to elect a Tory.
But following last Thursday’s electoral earthquake, the county’s seven constituencies are now represented by two Labour MPs and five Lib Dems.
In its rejection of the current Conservative Party, it is, of course, hardly atypical of the countrywide trend, but the Oxfordshire results are less about national politics and more about local exigencies. Curiously, that in itself presents something of a challenge to the jubilant Lib Dems.
Hyper-local issues which appeared to motivate the electorate here ranged from pollution in the River Thames – a national concern, yes, but a sizeable vote for the Greens was indicative of its importance here – to traffic-calming measures in the city of Oxford, where there was a rejection of Conservative opposition to 20mph zones.
In other parts of Britain, it was everything from potholes to planning which got voters engaged. And what was even clearer from the results in Oxfordshire was that the candidates who had local bona fides were the ones who did best.
Every new MP in the county was already a serving councillor and had a track record of serving the community, and it was relentless on-the-ground, door-to-door campaigning, rather than a sophisticated social media messaging programme, which won the day.
Therein lies the dilemma for those of us who support a fundament of Lib Dem policy: the replacement of our first-past-the-post voting system with a form of proportional representation.
You don’t have to look too far to see how this most recent election illustrated the egregious iniquities of the status quo – Labour winning a landslide victory on only a third of the popular vote, Reform gaining 14 per cent of votes and fewer than 1 per cent of seats – but the results in Oxfordshire and elsewhere reveal an inconvenient truth: the constituency link with Westminster remains a powerful force, and whichever way PR is cut and shaped, we have to accept that this connection would be weakened.
Yes, the archaic first past the post system might be replaced by something more modern, fairer and more inclusive. It might be an arrangement which better reflects the way the country voted. What’s more, the idea of constituency representation need not be lost completely.
In the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, for instance, half of members are elected to single-member constituencies and half to multi-member regions via the Additional Member System.
But there is no escaping the downside of PR: that visceral element of our politics, of local issues feeding into a national debate, of people feeling that their particular interests were being defended by an accountable individual, would not be quite as clear and present.
There is another reason why the election of 2024 could be a watershed for supporters of electoral reform. Under a PR system, Reform would have won between 60 and 70 seats to reflect their share of the popular vote.
“So be it,” was Lib Dem leader Ed Davey’s response when this possibility was put to him, and he’s right: one rigged system can’t be replaced by another one which disadvantages those whose views we might find disagreeable.
While many of us would find this a frightening prospect, Sir Ed is resolved to continue to prosecute the Lib Dems’ century-old opposition to the current system. “Here’s the point,” he said. “As a democrat, I want to debate with people who I disagree with.”
He may have cause to regret this, given the disproportionate amount of air time Nigel Farage and his handful of MPs are afforded. He also might consider more carefully why his party did so well in so many areas.
Their candidates were, in Oxfordshire and elsewhere, local people who understood local issues.
Like it or not, proportional representation makes that simple virtue more problematic to realise. Be careful what you wish for.