• SOME thoughts further to the recent articles and letters in the CNJ about PR, proportional representation, and redrawing constituency boundaries.

I fully support PR and am left wing / alternative, meaning totally against the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrat parties for their Thatcherite / neo-liberal policies.

The electorate effectively voted for PR in the 2010 general election by electing a hung parliament where the balance of power was held by the Lib Dems with their well-known slogan “If there’s a hung parliament, we will insist on proportional representation as the price of our support.”

Opinion polls predicted a hung parliament. Unfortunately Nick Clegg and his Lib Dems just threw this chance away, leading to them losing most of their support and their seats being reduced to 1960s levels.

The alternative to the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition was a minority Labour / Lib Dem government with just one policy in the Queen’s Speech, namely: “This government proposes to hold another general election under proportional representation”.

In 2011 there was a referendum on a non-PR electoral system called alternative vote (AV), which hardly anyone had heard of before the 2010 election and the result was “no”.

By leaving the European Union, the Conservative Party has set up an isolationist dictatorship, which I think is loosely based on Franco-era Spain, as well as Apartheid-era South Africa.

Francisco Franco was leader of Spain from 1936-1975 while the National Party ruled South Africa from 1948-1994 with Apartheid laws running from 1949-1991.

I predict from this that the Conservative dictatorship will be in power until about the year 2061.

This is because there’s no effective opposition, no proper constitution, and they seem to have the power to redraw constituency boundaries, although I thought this was decided by an independent commission.

The government fully supports FPTP, first-past-the-post, because it enables them to win majorities; although their party has not managed to get over 50 per cent of the votes since 1935.

In Denmark and the Netherlands the electoral systems are quite different, although in Germany it’s similar to the GLA’s.

The Netherlands and Denmark have no real local constituencies, which means it’s easier for candidates from new parties of all shades of opinion to be elected.

I think I prefer the Danish no-constituency, multi-party, PR-type system to the one used in Germany, where all governments are also coalitions; there are local MPs and party list MPs, but the CDU / CSU have been leading all governments since 2005, as well as for the period 1982-1998.

Before that the SPD was the only other party that could lead a government, but their most recent periods doing that have been 1998-2005, the first since 1969-1982.

The Greens now have a chance to form a government, but the Green / Red / Red coalition (Greens / SPD / Left Party) that lots of people are hoping for seems unlikely.

So never mind what constituency you’re in or what it’s called, Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats killed any chance of PR in the United Kingdom, leading to Brexit and an isolationist dictatorship.

I think people should vote with their feet by leaving the UK, then tell as many people as possible to boycott British goods and services. Hit Johnson’s rogue state hard!

PAUL BROWN, NW5