Also, with multi-member constituencies, lots of local government wards return more than one councillor. My local government ward returns 3, and my town council ward returns 6.

I really don't understand why 3, 4 or 5 MPs per constituency would be any worse than 1 MP, when currently most of the people in a constituency wouldn't have voted for that 1 MP anyway.

Helen, Wokingham, UK

On the "Parliamentary Voodoo" surrounding the constituency link, two quick points:

1 - the constituency link that people venerate is a link between 1 individual and 1 MP. There’s is no reason why 1 individual to 3 MPs could not be referred to/act as a constituency link. The Hansard Audit of Engagement 5, launched yesterday, shows that only 15% of people have contacted their MP in the last 3 years. Democracy is not going to crumble overnight if we introduce multi-member constituencies.

2 - size of multi-member constituencies: Britain is a small and relatively densely populated country. If AV is a good system then the few Highlands and Islands constituencies that truly are too sparsely populated to support multi-member constituencies can operate AV. The rest of us can have STV in 3-5 member constituencies, with all the benefits for representation and individual voter efficacy that this brings.

Steve Skelton, London (né Doncaster),

I have rarely voted for anybody. I vote against.

Almost always, and certainly not uncommonly, I particularly detest one candidate, and want to oppose him, or her of course. The only way to do this is to support his principal opponent - whom I tend to like but little better. Meanwhile people with the opposite view take the opposite action, with the result that the totals of both candidates are inflated, with their egos and megalomanias.

Optional Negative Voting is a more revealing, more honest system. An elector casts his same, single vote either for a candidate, to raise his total, or against him, to decrease it. This tells politicians what the electorate thinks of them.

Unsurprisingly, no major party, in any country, will even admit that ONV exists.

Noel Falconer, COUIZA, France

There must not be the slightest change to our constitution without a referendum of the British people. I should not trust any of the main polical parties with my small change let alone with scrapping our voting system.

George, Bolton, UK

My goodness, this is breathtaking. Approaching a time when the Tories are going to need both sides of the House to house all their MPs a stalwart of the Left, probably fearing the extinguishing of the representation of his vote, looks towards electoral reform to accommodate the eclipse of his party of choice! Memo to David Cameron, Dear Sir, I have received confirmation from a socialist insider that his party is doomed, this is contained in a plea for a PR system, such as the one that the one policy Liberals have been seeking for years, ignore it, he's having a laugh. The only possible attraction in this suggestion is a veiled appeal to the Liberals to move into the Government's lobby to support a proposal that they have been pursuing since the flood. But this is the liberal dilemma of the Liberal party, to support such a plea at this time, to drawer closer to Labour in their death throws, will stigmatise the Liberal too. The electorate will be after blood; Liberals lie low.

Malcolm Turner, Alsager, England

" ... the CentreForum think-tank has produced a paper arguing that on key policies, such as “greenery” and civil liberties, the Lib Dems are today closer to the Tories than for many years."

I beg to differ. The two parties are not actually close at all on these issues.

For the most part, the Lib Dems are seriously committed to these and other issues and are prepared, for example, to take hard and possibly unpopular measures to deal with carbon emissions.

The Tories pay lip service to these matters and are only concerned with softening their image in order to gain the popular vote. On the infrequent occasions when they have announced specific policies (e.g. their £20 a week marriage allowance) they have been exposed as gimmicks, being superficial, ill thought out and subsequently quietly shelved.

Michael Cole, London,