How much majority is required to win election?

[AJI]

I heard somebody say something strange just earlier which got me thinking.

They said that on the last election Labour won with only 22% of the vote.
And that for Conservative to win in the early 1990's they needed something like 40% of the vote.
Now I'm not sure if those figures are correct in any way but I did realise that I am not sure how the votes are converted into parliment seats.


So my question : Does any one party have to reach a similar majority of votes to win the election?
Or is it similar to the above whereby say the Conservatives need to gain 40% of the vote and Labour still only need to gain 22% to stay in power?

[AJI]

JagLover said:

Puggit said:

In 2005 election Labour polled around 40% of the votes, but as the turnout was 50-odd percent, they polled 22% of the electorate.

No they polled 36%, and achieved a decent majority with that.

Labour could probably retain power now with as little of 34% of the vote. Whereas the Tories need to be polling around 40% to do the same.

Ah I see.

So it really isn't a fair system where one party requires a larger percentage to win than another party.
If each/any party always required 40% (to use a given number for example) then it would be fairer yes/no ?