One safeguard for democracy might be a party-independent House of Lords picked by some random

One safeguard for democracy might be a party-independent House of Lords, picked by some random system. Heredity, say.TOM MCINTYREFROME, SOMERSET French system gives power to the voters Sir: To say that Parliament should represent the views of the nation is far too consumerist an approach to the business of government and reduces Parliament to a talking shop. Our only democratic right is, once in five years, to choose between two or three bags of very mixed policies.PR makes things worse. The result is absolutely correct and legitimate.I have in the past favoured proportional representation of some sort. Now I see that I was wrong.JAMES BARINGPASSENHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE PR favours the party machines Sir: Can we ever have true democracy when the parties have narrow control of our representation? We have no primary elections The parties choose our potential representatives.

Is that what Juliet Samuel really wants?NICK CHADWICKOXFORD The election result that we wanted Sir: Your correspondents and headline writers are quite wrong. The result of the election is exactly what a majority of the electorate, including those who did not vote, desired. It was achieved by a collective action, using the system with which people are familiar, with the exception that more postal voting was available to encourage a wider participation.Non-votes were important, signifying that while a reduction in Labour’s majority was desired, the Conservatives were not wanted yet and the Liberal Democrats picked up only a realistic vote given the obvious flaws in their policies. “In order to get any legislation through, parties have to make deals with one another,” she states. Precisely; and a little more co-operation and consensus would be welcome, in place of the “yah-boo” confrontational politics which have bedevilled our so-called democracy for as long as I can remember.Apart from once every four or five years, in a general election, the electorate is powerless to bring about any change in politics.

A government with a large majority can do precisely what it likes, firm in the knowledge that the rebels in its own ranks will hold back from putting their own futures as MPs at risk by bringing the Government down This is not democracy: it is dictatorship by one party. We all know where dictatorship leads: to extra-parliamentary resistance. Under the present system it is tyranny by a minority.As fewer and fewer under-30s bother to vote it is now vital that proportional representation in the form of the single transferable vote is adopted before the next election. Otherwise an entire generation will feel disenfranchised and never return to the ballot box.Nobody in their right mind would suggest first-past-the-post voting as an example of democracy for a new country.PAUL CLARKOAKHAM, RUTLANDSir: The chief reasons for Juliet Samuel’s dislike of proportional representation (letter, 12 May) are precisely those that commend it.Like many other people in this country, she seems to think that the inability of any one party to win an absolute majority would be a disadvantage. Britain’s first-past-the-post system has been entirely discredited and the Labour Government’s legitimacy hangs by a thread. Every policy, every piece of legislation and the entire of style of Parliament is dictated by how a government is elected.