Voting electronically means we could embrace a new form of proportional representation

The prospect of votes in parliament being cast remotely and registered and counted electronically (to facilitate social distancing) lifts one psychological barrier to a novel form of proportional representation (PR).

In conventional PR we would vote for a political party which is then awarded a number of seats in proportion to its share of the votes. The party allocates those seats to its preferred candidates.

In the novel form we could vote, just as now, for an individual candidate appearing on the ballot paper for our local constituency. On this ballot paper we would have the alternative of writing in the reference number for a candidate from a nationwide list.

Candidates would then have a vote in parliament weighted according to the number of votes they themselves received. This weighting, cumbersome if performed manually, becomes seamless when the system is already digital. Potentially, all candidates could then participate in parliamentary votes.

If thought necessary, a threshold could be set for having this right, though this might involve the complication of allowing voters to select a back-up candidate in case their first choice doesn’t reach the threshold. Alternatively, a deposit could be taken (as now) and partly or fully refunded depending on how many up to a set number of votes the candidate receives. The deposit would in effect double as a fee for the vanity of being self-representing in parliament.

The highest polling candidate in each constituency would, as now, hold the title of MP for that constituency. Other candidates with a correspondingly high tally of votes would be titled MP but without a constituency designation. Other thresholds would define eligibility for various levels of salary (down to none) and for being admitted to parliament unconditionally or on a weighted lottery basis, with those not present able to vote remotely.

The system would achieve the virtues of PR without making the parties monolithic.

John Riseley​
Harrogate

I agree with Sean O’Grady’s pertinent article ”The problem with politicians missing the target”, save for one point relating to the prime minister. Deadlines can both detract from the truth and be thwarted by circumstance. Matt Hancock has set a target to conduct 100,000 tests by 30 April. This target may or may not be met; if it is, the government will crow with delight, and if it is not met, the media will respond. But the truth that could be overlooked is that not enough testing is being done.

But has Boris Johnson been “shrewd” with his Brexit targets? He set a deadline to leave the EU by 31 October 2019, and would have preferred to “die in a ditch” rather than miss that deadline. Only the prime minister could get away with blaming others for getting in the way of this missed target.

Of greater concern is the deadline of 31 December 2020 for the conclusion of trade negotiations with the EU. This deadline was always tight, and circumstance has intervened, even if nobody could have anticipated the present crisis.

But, with so much death and disruption across the UK and Europe, is pursuit of this deadline ethically defensible and economically sound?

Still, deadlines make headlines.

Chich Hewitt
Bolton

The government seems to have a total blind spot regarding the damage being done by lockdown – the effects on mental health, the rising levels of domestic and other forms of abuse.

Then there is the future of the economy: the longer we remain locked down, the higher will be the cost in terms of job losses etc.

Finally, the lockdown policy has worked so well because people have followed the advice, practically to the letter. Failure to be seen to be moving the country out of lockdown risks the government losing its authority. The lockdown may then just crumble, with people going back to work and coming out of their homes regardless. What will the government do in response – arrest everyone and put them in those already overcrowded and Covid-19 vulnerable prisons?

No, the time has come for some grown-up politics – treat the people as adults, stop the silly militaristic language of conflicts and outline the way forward out of lockdown.

Paul Donovan
London, E11

In response to letter recommending humans adopt vegan diets, I’d like to ask the authors for reassurance that adequate nutrition is certain in every circumstance. In modern times there may be few in affluent countries who breastfeed throughout the next pregnancy and beyond (as I did) and I would have been concerned to rely on mammoth quantities of sesame seeds as source of calcium in time of exceptional nutritional demand (as one example). Artificial dietary supplements tend to be less well absorbed.

I don’t eat meat (it looks too dead and reminds me of the dissecting room!) but my one Lenten veganism proved to be a dress rehearsal for social distancing.

Dr Patricia Fowlie
Tunbridge Wells

Dominic Raab’s interesting word choice, “not to sugar-coat” the care home deaths, is a Freudian slip. Promises, promises is all the care home system has had over a six-week period. Each received a single box of 300 units of PPE, less than a day’s use in large homes, but government was constantly saying it was being sent more and that there were adequate supplies in the care-home sector.

Being told you are going to get medical help, whilst receiving nothing, is just like having a placebo – a sugar-coated pill.

Stuart Wilkie
Lyndhurst

One group of carers sadly missed from the applause is those unpaid carers looking after family or those needing support at home. If they were frazzled before, they certainly are now. Carer’s Allowance (CA) is pitiful, and the criteria punitive.

CA should be reformed urgently, and should involve carers and groups representing them, just so that reform goes smoothly. Disability benefits should also be increased. Prices have gone up during this crisis. I dread to think of the levels of suffering out there in the real world. Come on government, you know it makes sense!

Gary Martin
London, E17​