Sir, What your article about the Italian election (April 12) failed to consider is what the situation would be if one party had a majority in England but not in the UK as a whole. Pre-devolution such a scenario did not matter; post-devolution the situation is different. Scotland and Wales now have their own Parliament/Assembly and, more significantly, their own governments. England, by contrast, continues to be ruled directly by the UK and has no political institutions answerable solely to the people of England.

In the last election the Conservatives got more votes in England than Labour but Labour formed the UK Government and thereby rules England. If, after a future election, the Conservatives were the largest party in England but not in the UK, and a UK government were formed that did not reflect the choice of the people of England then we would have a real constitutional crisis. Such a UK government would be the legal government but would it be regarded as legitimate?

NEIL ADDISON
New Bailey Chambers
Liverpool

Sir, It seems to be a feature of many recent elections across the West that the two main parties are fairly evenly split, with few votes separating them. It happened last year in Germany; as you report, it has just happened in Italy; it was the case in the US in 2000 and almost again in 2004. The recent Canadian election failed to produce a majority administration. In the UK, Labour’s 66-seat majority could have been wiped out completely if a total of 15,000 people in the most marginal seats had voted differently. Each of these countries uses a different electoral system: some are more proportional than others, some — like our own and Canada’s — aren’t at all. And each of these countries will have a different way of resolving a hung parliament, or close elections, based on their particular political circumstances and culture. So any explanation of Italy’s woes that just blames PR tends to be far too simplistic and fundamentally flawed. One only need look at the success of Germany’s grand coalition to see how the doomsayers are being proved incorrect there.

MALCOLM CLARK
Co-ordinator, Make Votes Count
London SE1

Sir, It is wrong to suggest that the only sensible change to have taken pace in the Italian voting system was to award a bonus to the coalition that won the most votes. That factor seems to have led to much of the current uncertainty.

Knowing that this bonus prize was on offer, both Centre Left and Centre Right strove to forge unlikely alliances that are already showing signs of falling apart. There was a pressing need to scrape together a few more votes at almost any cost — not to build an arrangement based on shared values or common policies, as previous coalitions had done. Imagine a centre-right coalition in the UK needing to bring Veritas, the UKIP, the English Democrats and the Conservatives together into a harmonious working relationship.

It is quite false to suggest that “proportional representation will return Italy to political instability” or that the current uncertainty in Italy is anything to do with voting systems. PR is the norm throughout Europe — instability is not.

Moreover, Italy did not have a “winner-take-all constituency voting system”. The past two elections have been fought on a system of PR, but one similar to that used for the devolved institutions in Scotland, Wales and London. While that system is far from perfect, what Berlusconi has instituted is not a change away from PR but to a list system — the least desirable form of PR, and yet the form we use to elect our MEPs.

The closeness of the result in Italy may be more to do with a genuinely divided nation. A similar situation occurred in Canada under the first-past-the-post system we use in our own elections, and we should not forget the contest between Bush and Gore in 2000. It is also worth noting that while Berlusconi and Prodi argue over the outcome of the recent election, both their coalitions gained more than 49 per cent of the votes. Compare that with Britain, where Labour was able to form a government on its own in spite of having only 36 per cent of the votes.

KEN RITCHIE
Chief Executive, Electoral Reform Society
London SE1

Sir, I shall be able to vote for the first time in the next general election. But I face a dilemma: I don’t want to vote for any of the main parties. Why? Because our democratic system allows people to be our leaders for whom staying in power is a judgment-affecting issue . These are exactly the sort of people whom I don’t want to support.

The Ancient Athenians had it right. The president of their council held the post for only a day. This gave them no opportunity to become corrupted by the power of the position and led to a fairer and more democratic government. Maybe we should take a lesson from them.

FERGUS McINTOSH (15)
Goring, Oxon

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