A vote for PR

Peter Kellner’s number-crunching knocks another chunk off the myth that Boris Johnson appeals to voters his fellow Tories cannot reach ( Prospect online, January).

Just look at the last election. According to BBC figures, in her tepid campaign of 2017 Theresa May garnered just over 13.6m votes. Two years later, Johnson’s more rumbustious campaign only added another 330,000; not quite enough to touch 14m. Meanwhile, the Greens increased their vote by a slightly more wallshattering 340,000, but this proved not enough to bring their lonesome MP a companion.

Both, however, were knocked into a cocked hat by the much-mocked leader of the Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, who added 1.3m votes to her party’s tally but lost her own seat, and they were returned with one fewer than in 2017. It was

the skew in the constituency system that brought lucky Johnson more reward than he deserved.

Allan Fowlie, via the website