A failure to trust voters on Europe
From: Dave Croucher, Pinfold Gardens, Doncaster.
THE reason Ed Miliband did so badly in the country’s leadership battle was because he made it clear that he did not trust the people whose votes he needed to put him in the job.
Yes, he managed to keep his seat for Doncaster North, but if a smoked kipper was put up as a candidate (as long has they called it Labour), it would get votes in this area.
Ed Miliband should have at least offered a vote on Europe to the people, I believe that we would be better off in the EU, but not at any cost. If the Europeans don’t give us back the control of our own borders and control of our own country, then I believe this would be too much.
We must be able to decide our own destiny.
From: Edward Grainger, Nunthorpe, North Yorkshire.
JOHN Duckett of Goole ( The Yorkshire Post, May 7) asks what happens to the ballot papers once the election and counting has taken place and the result is announced and the candidates express their wish to let the result stand.
Having worked on all types of election in 47 years in the system, I know only too well that the job I dreaded most was during the day following polling day, usually a Friday, gathering all the ballot papers for each constituency into parcels to despatch to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery for safe keeping.
The ballot papers for local elections and for an elected mayor were similarly gathered together and stored in the basements of the town hall or municipal offices of the city or town to which they related.
The reasons for keeping both and all sets of papers is simply to ensure that any constituency result or ward result, if subsequently legally challenged after the declarations of the result or in case of allegations and corrupt and illegal practices or voting discrepancies, can be fully investigated under the Representation of the People Act.
From: Dr Robert Heys, Bar Lane, Sowerby Bridge.
THE reduction of Lib Dem Parliamentary representation to eight MPs ( The Yorkshire Post, May 9) is deeply disappointing to me as a lifelong Liberal/Lib Dem supporter. However, the party has recovered from a greater defeat in the past. At the General Election following World War Two, it was reduced to six MPs and a mere five per cent of the national vote. I have no doubt that a similar recovery will follow a spell of Tory government unrestrained by coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
From: Michael J Robinson, Berry Brow, Huddersfield.
PICKING up on Terry Palmer’s letter ( The Yorkshire Post, May 12), asking if now is the time for electoral reform, given the situation where the Greens polled one million votes and gained one MP; Ukip polled almost four million votes and also have one MP; and the SNP polled 1.4 million votes and have 56 MPs. Won’t re-organisation of the constituency boundaries go a long way towards that aim?
When the Conservatives wouldn’t go along with the Lib Dems’ desire for reform of the House of Lords, the Lib Dems retaliated by refusing to back the reduction of constituencies from 650 to 600, each with roughly equal numbers of voters. I hope that now there is no Lib Dem drag on passing such legislation, a fair distribution of votes and fewer MPs will be achieved in this Parliament.
From: David Craggs, Rotherham.
THE supposedly fair-minded people of this country no doubt feel that we have one of the strongest democracies in the world... so much so that the government of the day has been prepared to go to war to enforce our style of democracy on other countries. It took place in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had the Americans gone into Syria to enforce regime change there, we would almost certainly have supported them in a military role.
So, why is it that so many people are blind to an inequality that has again been thrown up by the recent General Election?
What am I referring to? It is the fact that millions of people who voted on Thursday have no representation in the country’s supreme ruling body, namely Parliament.
One has only to look at the figures: nearly four million Ukip voters and over a million Green voters are represented by just one MP each.
The present voting system is crying out for change in order to correct this inequality, but this is the last thing on the minds of the Conservatives, the SNP and the defeated Labour party.
As I stated in an earlier letter to your columns, a General Election is all about power. How that is achieved is immaterial, nor is there the slightest guilt if the process is unfair.
In their wildest dreams the SNP could not have predicted that a total vote of less than half the Ukip vote would result in fifty times the number of seats in Parliament, so they obviously love “first past the post”, as do the Labour Party because in order for them to ever achieve power again they too will have to rely on it. So much for our democratic process.
From: Colin Cawthray, Stowe Garth, Bridlington.
NOW that Ed Balls has lost his Parliamentary seat in Morley, does this mean that he will get himself a normal job in the outside world or will he be employed by his wife Yvette Cooper as her gopher? There is one thing for certain – he certainly will not get a job with any supermarkets on their cash tills.