I CONCUR with A Cunningham's criticism of the present voting system (HAS, Apr 16) and the considerable and undesirable voter apathy it gives rise to.

It has to be a democraticallysuspect voting system that results in minority (of the overall popular vote) government that this country successively and so inevitably has had to put up with to date - except for the National Government of the world war years.

The respective excesses of Thatcherism (no such thing as society) and Blairism (join in invasion of Iraq or bust), both minority regimes with conversely huge majorities in Parliament, would most probably have been spared the country had a more enlightened-cum-representative voting system operated: such a system is obviously proportional representation (PR), with its multipreference voting and each preference contributing to the eventual outcome.

To their credit, the Liberal Democrats have passionately sought the introduction of a PR system of electoral voting.

Ironically, and encouragingly, there has also, invariably, been a majority of the public favourably disposed towards PR in opinion polls on the subject since about the 1980s.

Sadly, successive governments since then have clearly signalled a vested, and I would venture unhealthy, interest in the status quo of confrontation, rather than concensus, in their politics.

EA Murtagh, Stockton-on-Tees.