A good way to give the BNP seats

While the wrangles go on about proportional representation it is interesting to break down the figures as to what would have happened this time if each party had been allocated seats on the basis of their percentage of votes they collected.

The Tories would have had 234 instead of their 305, Labour 188 (268) the Lib Dems 149 (57) while UKIP would have had 20 seats against their current zero.

But it doesn't stop there. The BNP would have 12 seats and parties such as UKIP and the BNP would probably manage even more with PR as they would stand in even more constituencies as a vote gathering exercise as would all the minor parties apart from the SDP and Plaid Cymru.

Among the nationalists the SNP would go from six to 11, Plaid Cymru would increase one to four while in the minor parties the Greens would have six instead of one while even the English Democrats would have managed one seat.

I am not making any great point I just thought it was interesting and shows how every Government under PR would be a rag bag of parties held together by compromise, dodgy deals, blackmail, corruption and political chicanery - we might as well change our name to Italy.

Personally I think a system with equal sized constituencies by population, so each vote is worth the same amount and two candidates for each constituency would make things fairer.

I am old fashioned enough to believe that democracy, or what little is left after Blair and Brown, means people should vote for the person they want to represent them not some party machine who will allocate the next toady, brown nose on the candidate list.

While we are at it our electoral system makes Zimbabwe look a cradle of democracy. Perhaps the time has come for people to have to produce a voting card or ID at Polling Stations. You need ID to buy a mobile phone so why not to elect a Government? At the moment anyone who knows the name and address of anyone on the electoral roll can vote in their name.

Postal votes should also be restricted to those on holiday, abroad or working away from home at the time of the election or housebound