Sir – In giving the results of the recent election in Oxford city, you quote various comments from party leaders.

You say that Conservative organiser, Matthew Barber (from the Vale of White Horse!) was not surprised his party remained without a city seat. Nor was anyone!

But he went on to add: “Oxford seems to buck the trend.” What trend?

Watching the national results on TV that Thursday night I got the distinct impression that Tories and Lib-Dems were losing seats and the Labour Party was gaining seats. Published figures confirm my impression and so Oxford was not bucking the trend. It was just following it.

The real reason why for over ten years the Tories have had no city councillors is the grossly unjust first-past-the-post system. This has now been abandoned for local elections in other parts of the UK. Why not in England?

No assembly can possibly be called democratic unless its members reflect proportionally the political views of the voters. In Oxford it would be quite simple to have just 12 wards each with four councillors, all elected on the same day by single transferable vote.

The result would be roughly proportioned to votes cast, not to mention saving the cost of elections every two years.

The same system should apply to the county council in 2013 when, I am told, the city will have only 14 members instead of 16. This will cause complex changes to boundaries. It would be far simpler just to divide the city into four large wards, two with four members each and two with three members each, elected of course by single transferable vote.

Is it really so difficult to put a few candidates in order of preference — one, two, three, four etc?

M. Hugh-Jones, Oxford