Sir – Timothy Oates (Letters, June 11) has exposed only half the electoral truth. The Tory vote was 43 per cent of the 38 per cent of votes cast. In other words, 16 per cent of the total electorate control 70 per cent of the elected members of the county council.

Whatever form of proportional representation we eventually decide upon (which we will have to do sooner rather than later), this travesty of democratic justice would be avoided whatever the percentage vote. Proportional representation would have placed the control of the county with a coalition of Lib Dems, Greens and Labour, whose core values are certainly not those Tory values which the majority (57 per cent) of the electorate did not want and did not endorse.

John Woodford, Abingdon