VOTE Ukip, get Labour; vote for the Conservatives and get hypocrites.
The alternative vote (AV) system would have allowed right-of-centre voters to put Conservative and Ukip as their first and second choices (or second and first) without giving Labour a look in.
Yet the same Tory ministers who insisted it wasn’t worth changing an inadequate system to prevent vote splitting are now saying that to achieve the same effect we should vote for a party we are dissatisfied with.
Drastic action would indeed be needed to secure a Conservative majority in 2015.
The only plausible objection to AV was the increased risk of a hung parliament. But with us now facing the prospect of a second consecutive hung parliament under the old system, how much weight can we place on that consideration?
Unless the Lib Dems and Labour are looking to outdo the Conservatives in the hypocrisy stakes, and reveal that their interest in reform was simply for short term party advantage, they should put a revised form of AV through Parliament in time for the next General Election.
John Riseley,
Harrogate.