Plea for PR
Sir: Ferdinand Mount (13 May) refers to the 'obstinate, deep-rooted stability of the British political system' which has allowed the present Government to ride roughshod over constitutional precedents without demur. But should we necessarily condone this?
Surely what those of us who advocate constitutional and electoral reform are saying is that there are enormous dangers in allowing this to continue to happen. So far the licence which has been taken with constitutional precedent has not been so extreme as to disrupt or even overthrow our democratic system, though there have been some academic rumblings as to what does or does not erode constitutional practice.
But, how long can we continue to allow this to happen, particularly when the Labour Party is committed to abolish one branch of our constitution, the House of Lords, and could easily do so even if they were returned to power on a minority of the votes. As constitutional reformers we are not theorists of doom, as Ferdinand Mount describes us, but advocates of democracy who are not merely concerned to preserve our present position but to improve on it. We, in company with many others from all branches of the political spectrum, are concerned at the lack of checks and balances within the constitution and consider that both electoral and constitutional reform are necessary to meet this problem. Of course popular support is by far the best basis for the survival of any institution, but we are in danger of abusing this luxury if we continue to allow successive inroads into our constitutional practice either by minority governments or by the possibility of single-chamber government. Constitutional reform to include a proportional system of election to the House of Commons as a priority is the surest way of maintaining the reality of popular support for our institutions.
Elizabeth Lyon CAER (Conservative Action for Electoral Reform), 6 Queen Street, London W1
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