Letter on Local Elections to the Walthamstow Guardian

The Walthamstow Guardian published this letter on the 10th May (letters page not online).


Dear Editor,

There is a serious lesson to be learnt from last week's local elections. The Conservatives got 25% of the Councillors from 27% of the vote, the Liberal Democrats got 32% of the Councillors from 32% of the vote, but Labour got 43% of the Councillors from 34% of the vote.

The main victims of our unrepresentative voting system are the smaller organisations like the Green Party and Respect. They have a sizeable minority of voters who are completely unrepresented on the Council, and hardly represented in Parliament.

The recent Power Inquiry report highlighted the widespread disillusion with politics in Britain, with people feeling alienated from the political system. We desperately need electoral reform with some form of proportional representation so everyone is represented. Otherwise important arguments are ignored, not just by politicians, but also by the media which concentrates its coverage on elected politicians.

We need action now if we are to have anything like a representative democracy in this country.

Yours faithfully,

Grouchy.