COUNCILLOR Ian Hudspeth complains that a “Scot is dictating the national laws.” He must mean Gordon Brown MP. As he is an elected member of the UK Parliament and the leader of its largest party he is entirely entitled to be Prime Minister — until the next General Election.

That the Labour Party has a large majority in the present House of Commons is just one unfortunate effect of the un-democratic ‘first-past-the-post’ system of elections, which is used in hardly any other European country.

Mr Brown’s last-minute self-interested conversion to the ‘alternative vote’ is a complete waste of breath as he only proposed a referendum on the subject in the next parliament, when there will surely be a Tory majority.

I wrote to Mr Brown some three months ago suggesting that a referendum should be held this autumn on genuine proportional representation, which ‘alternative vote’ is not.

The system which gives most choice to voters is the ‘single transferable vote’ in constituencies returning four, five or six MPs a county or city, or part of a very large city such as London.

No doubt I shall be dead before England becomes a genuinely democratic country.

M HUGH-JONES Headley Way Oxford