Proportional representation is true rule by the people | Letters

Readers respond to Gaby Hinsliff’s defence of first past the post, and Polly Toynbee’s call for electoral reform Gaby Hinsliff (Nobody wants to defend Britain’s voting system any more – but here’s why I will, 26 February) writes that proportional representation (PR) “doesn’t guarantee that we could all just vote for what we want instead of endlessly against what we fear (ask the French)”. Yet France does not use PR, which is precisely why tactical blocking occurs there. Indeed, there is overwhelming cross-party support in France for moving towards PR. Under first past the post (FPTP), whoever wins the most votes takes the seat, even without a majority. That means a majority of voters in a constituency can end up unrepresented, as in Gorton and Denton, where six in 10 votes were not represented. The debate becomes not who can best represent you, but who can most likely beat someone else. Much of the byelection became precisely this: Labour and Green supporters second-guessing the “anti-Reform” candidate rather than voting for what they actually wanted. Hinsliff warns that PR risks coalitions “dangerously prone either to making disproportionately powerful kingmakers of tiny fringe pa