There has recently been a lot of official propaganda, with big black and yellow posters at the bus stops in St Aldate’s, Oxford, urging people to register to vote. These posters have a big X on them.

But why do we in England still have this first-past-the-post voting by making a space with an X?

Every other European country has some form of proportional representation so that the members of their parliaments roughly share the politics of the voters in proportion to the votes cast.

The best way to do this is to have constituencies which each elect three, four or five MPs with the voters showing their preference by making candidates 1, 2, 3 etc.

It is called a single transferable vote and has been used in Ireland for many, many years.

In 2015, the government will be chosen by a few thousand floating voters in 100 or so marginal seats.

The party with the most seats will probably only have the votes of 35 per cent or less of those voting.

No wonder many people in so-called safe seats do not bother to vote!

In my 65 years of adult life, I have never cast a vote which got any preferred candidate into parliament.

I find that really rather sad...

MICHAEL HUGH-JONES
Headley Way
Oxford