Voting matters

THE polls show no sign of shifting and the SNP seem set to take over from Labour as the dominant party – with regards to the number of MPs – in Scotland. It leaves us with the likely scenario that the party whose raison d’etre is the destruction of the UK has the vast majority of Scottish seats in the new UK parliament. The problem, as it was during Labour’s hegemony, is that the other parties are split.

Surely it is time, throughout the UK, for a form of PR to be introduced that will rid us of these anomalies once and for all. Otherwise the UK will become ungovernable.

ALEXANDER McKAY

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh

ALLAN Sutherland’s discussion of “tactical voting” (Letters 31 March) illustrates the melange of “the politics of mass society”.

Clearly appealing for tactical voting recognises that political parties can’t be identified with one class because the structure of post-industrial society have changed dramatically. We have a “classless society” characterised by the few powerful elites with the rest the masses.

The politics of mass society is driven by mass communication technology used by dominant personalities. Arguably sophisticated “techniques of persuasion” using Facebook or Twitter will figure large in the “politics of mass society.”

ELLIS THORPE

Old Chapel Walk

Inverurie