Letter: for Proportional Representation for elections

Dear Editor,

On Tuesday, 6 February, hundreds of people are going on a 24-hour hunger strike to call for Proportional Representation in our elections.

This year we celebrate the centenary of the first Votes for Women.

Tribute is being paid to the suffering and sacrifice of the suffragettes and suffragists including going on hunger strikes, which led to that victory for democracy.

Whichever way you voted on Brexit, there’s no doubt that every vote counted in that – there was no need for tactical voting; you simple voted for what you believed in.

That is not true in our local and parliamentary elections.

Our current system is a failure.

Last June we had a third successive election which has either produced a hung parliament, or delivered a tiny parliamentary majority.

The First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system is clearly now failing on its main selling point – that it nearly always produces a strong and stable one-party Government.

It simply is not right for voters who prefer not to vote for either of the main parties, to find themselves in a situation where they have to hold their noses and vote for someone they don’t really want to simply keep out the candidate they dislike the most.

There are alternative voting systems out there which are fairer.

Do please contact your local MP and express your dissatisfaction.

You can help by joining the movement to Make Votes Matter:

https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/

Yours,

Tony Hughes

The views expressed are those of the author of the letter and not those of Oldham Chronicle.