SIR Your coverage of the respected Electoral Reform Society's damning report on the "Great Local Vote Swindle" (T&A, June 23) appears to have struck a chord among the readers.
In the past the Lib Dems were enthusiastic proponents of some form of proportional representation or other, but have become uncharacteristically silent on the topic of late. It is not hard to see why the BNP would be the biggest beneficiaries of any fairer system, especially of Single Transferable Vote.
Your attribution of a mere 13.4 per cent of the vote to us in the May poll averages out our success in gaining the support of up to a third of the electorate where we stood, and zero (by definition) where we didn't thus over the 16 wards in which we stood we were actually only a little over two per cent behind the two major parties (27.5 per cent) but under the first-past-the-post system gained only one councillor; whereas the Lib Dems and Greens, for instance, do better in a typical year because their support is highly concentrated in a few wards.
Theoretically, therefore, we could come second by a few votes in every ward in which we stood, gaining massive backing from the electorate, without getting a single councillor elected. No wonder Council leader Kris Hopkins is happier with the current unfair system!
Councillor James Lewthwaite (BNP, Wyke), c/o City Hall, Bradford
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