WHEN the debate in elections is reduced to ‘only my party can beat that other party’ it is clear that we have a democratic deficit.

No longer is the debate about policy, what a candidate (and their party) might do, but one about which candidate you’ll ‘hold your nose’ and vote for to stop the candidate you dislike most.

That’s not to decry the approach – I’ve used it myself – the ‘system’ forces it on candidates, but it is hardly surprising that it leads to a cynical electorate.

Consider also the imbalance in some results. In very many of the local election results across the country it was clear that most voters did not support the winning candidate, where polling around 35% of the votes was sufficient to be elected.

It can’t be right that the views of 65% are discounted. And it might be argued that in the case of a candidate winning by a (literal) handful of votes from another it is even more necessary to take account of the views of those that did not support the two leading candidates.

The ’first-past-the-post’ electoral system might have had a tenuous justification when the country was largely a two-party (Labour and Conservative) contest, but now the two-party system is dead and 5 parties in England (and 7 if you count Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalists) have a reasonable claim on support, we really should be moving to a voting system that gives a more representative result.

The recent elections involved proportional voting systems in Wales and Scotland, so it seems the principle has been accepted, so surely it is good enough for England as well?

Yes, proportional representation may lead to coalitions and compromise (dare one say people having to listen to – rather than shout at - each other) but it’s hard to see that the current ‘winner-takes-all’ approach has put the country in a great place.

It is time for proper democratic representation of people through proportional representation of their votes.

Mark Wooding

Parliamentary Spokesperson

Central Devon Liberal Democrats

p.s. No doubt those that defend ‘first-past-the-post’ (perhaps for their own perceived electoral advantage) will highlight flaws with proportional representation. But the question is surely, ‘is proportional representation less flawed than first-past-the-post?’. I think so.