I was not confused by boundary changes

DOROTHY Wilson (“PR Fans: Careful what you’re wishing for”, Opinion, December 3) implies that, in a previous letter supporting proportional representation, I was “confused over the proposed changes to parliamentary constituency boundaries” in that I considered them “inequitable”.

This is not the case. Equalising the size of constituencies is eminently equitable. What is patently “inequitable”, however, is the electoral system itself.

As I indicated, the present polling figures have the Labour Party marginally leading the Tory party.

If these figures were replicated in 2024, when the new boundaries are adopted, predictions suggest the Tory Party would have 300 seats but bizarrely Labour would only have 268 seats.

It is this which proves the firstpast-the-post system is inequitable.

Dorothy Wilson suggests that coalitions “frequently take months”, yet the 2010 Tory/lib Dem coalition, in fact, took only five days to organise. She warns, in effect, of the greater power of smaller parties not to our taste in a PR system, yet in our present system we have the Tory party proposing Bills to reduce the opportunity for judicial review of any of their potentially illegal decisions, deter non-political organisations from campaigning for policies they dislike, reduce the powers of the independent Electoral Commission, reduce the right to protest and suppress voting by groups less likely to vote Tory.

Surely, we are in desperate need of greater checks and balances on the party in power and, with a greater number of seats, the smaller parties would have this ability under a PR system?

Mike Baldwin

Thorverton