Letter: AV proposal is a 'loathsome' option

THE Alternative Vote (AV) proposal is so fundamentally loathsome because it finally abandons the last vestige of any pretence that the electorate votes for individuals rather than for political parties.

The British constitution always upheld the principle that Members of Parliament were elected as the representatives of their respective constituencies - to serve the interests of all its voters, no matter what their party allegiance. But now they are treated as merely delegates of the parties to which they, the members, owe allegiance, while the electorate are told that they are merely voting for a party label.

If candidates are no more than party nominees - as is already the case with the regional list system for the Scottish Parliament - why hold elections at all? Why not simply invite electors to vote for the preferred party and leave its leaders to nominate the appropriate number of Members in accordance with the resulting share of votes? Across the UK, that would save central government and the party organisations billions of pounds every four or five years as well as weeks of disruption to the economy.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, it has become clear from the current parliamentary election campaign - a non-event entirely governed by the parties' self-interests - that not only such elections but also Holyrood itself has become redundant. From reading the candidates' "shopping lists"- the rival promises of spending our money - it is impossible to identify the relevant parties. The only real difference is that the SNP is accused by all the other main parties of being interested only in the issue of national independence, which the SNP itself never mentions.

Scotland has now experienced enough of "devolution" to conclude that it has proved a stupendously expensive disaster - a hopeless halfway house to independence.

If Scotland wants separation from the UK then fine, let's get on with it. But otherwise, for pity's sake, let's scrap the failed experiment, dismantle this gigantic bureaucracy and revert to the previous highly favourable regime, with a Scottish Office and Secretary of State in the Cabinet at Westminster.

To restore some semblance of democracy, it is vital first of all to reaffirm the essential independence of our elected representatives at every level - and then proceed to reduce the number of levels.

VIVIAN LINACRE

Marshall Place

Perth

MARK Boyle usefully reminds us that AV was used in the past to elect MPs to the Westminster Parliament (Letters, 2 May). Those who claim AV is "not British" also seem unaware that there have been 32 AV public elections in Scotland in the past four years. Every council by-election to fill a single vacancy is an AV election. And there was not a single voting machine in sight at any of those AV elections.Indeed, most of the AV ballots were counted by hand.

AV will not solve all the problems with the defective FPTP voting system, but it will be a useful small change that will make a big difference in most constituencies. It will rid us of the "minority members" - those MPs elected without majority support. And as more than two-thirds of our present MPs are "minority members", the effect of AV making them seek a real mandate would be felt all across the UK, including Scotland.

JAMES GILMOUR

East Parkside

Edinburgh