Sir – Figures I have obtained from the district council offices show that in the recent election for the European Parliament, voters in Oxford City cast their votes for the main parties as follows: Labour 30 per cent, Green 22 per cent, Conservative 16 per cent, Lib Dem 14 per cent and UKIP 13 per cent.

These figures are different from the percentages of votes cast in the city council elections. I think they give a truer picture of political views in the city because voters know that the Euro-election was on a proportional basis.

If the city council’s 48 seats were also in proportion, the Conservatives would have seven seats, and Labour 16 rather than the 33 they now have. In fact, the Conservatives have not had a single seat for some 20 years. I find this grossly unjust!

Figures from other district councils in Oxfordshire show that in the county as a whole Conservatives got approximately 30.5 per cent of votes case, UKIP 25.5 per cent, Labour 33.5 per cent and Lib Dems 12 per cent, with Greens and 20 minor parties; most of which I’d never heard of, getting 8.5 per cent. No doubt the figures would have been different if the 60-plus per cent of voters who didn’t bother to vote, had done so.

I dare say many of them live in so-called ‘safe seats’, which the two main parties rely on under the first-past-the-post’ system still used for English elections.

M. Hugh-Jones, Oxford