Letter: Voting system causes apathy

From Ms Caroline Ellis

Sir: Perhaps part of the reason for the public apathy towards party politics (''Party politics turns Britain into an 'apathetic nation' ", 23 November) lies in the fact that political parties increasingly seem to have lost interest in the needs and concerns of the voters.

The first-past-the-post voting system based on the ethos of "to the victor the spoils" militates against any meaningful relationship between the people and the politicians. Under our current voting system, parties are not required to fight hard for every single constituency - apart from the 100-odd marginal seats, the result is a foregone conclusion.

The second feature of the first-past-the-post system is that it discourages political pluralism, with the manifestos of each of the main parties increasingly coming to resemble each other as they fight to occupy the same narrow political ground.

Herein lies part of the reason for the apparent shift towards punitive and authoritarian attitudes to civil rights, since politicians increasingly dare not speak up for people with lifestyles that diverge from "the norm" and fear the consequences of defending basic principles of human rights against populist authoritarianism - the lack of parliamentary opposition to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act being a recent case in point.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Ellis

Charter 88

London, EC1

23 November