On the aftermath of the General Election

I note some commentators in the Letters Pages have suddenly become converts to proportional representation (PR). They have only changed their tune when they ceased getting the over-representation they previously enjoyed, yet they are now right. I meanwhile am not going to change my position, I hate FPTP no less now that I have finally benefited from it. I recognise the unfairness and believe it must be corrected.

The unfairness was not confined to Scotland. In England, Ukip, a party I despise, should have won many dozens of seats but was left with only one. I want to see the back of Ukip but I want this achieved by exposing them for the charlatans they are, not by excluding their supporters from any representation. Similarly, the Conservatives have secured a majority with a pathetic share of the vote for the sole reason they managed to outperform Labour in the seats the Liberal Democrats were vacating in England.

The Conservatives naturally have no interest in PR. Indeed they plan to proceed with boundary rigging to give them an even greater advantage as they proceed in general with an extreme and disastrous manifesto that barely one-third of those who voted wished for. PR will not happen in this parliament, nor will much in the way of other necessary changes. Yet the need for it has become urgent.

I might be enjoying some schadenfreude at the poetic justice of those who previously supported FPTP suddenly finding themselves on the sharp end of it. They belatedly have a point. FPTP must be abolished as soon as possible and replaced by a system ensuring maximum proportionality either by means of lists with no thresholds in the present European Parliament constituencies or by a Mixed Member Proportional System with the list portion of the seats calculated at the same.

Iain Paterson,

2F Killermont View, Glasgow.

Now that the Conservatives have won an overall majority in the House of Commons, the problems of our old-fashioned and unsuitable election system will no doubt be swept under the Westminster carpet for another five years. Barring back-bench rebellions, Mr Cameron has been given virtually total control of every vote in Parliament, yet almost two-thirds of the British electorate did not vote for his party.

The first-past-the-post system belongs to a bygone age when there were only two major parties in parliament and every election was a two-horse race. This is manifestly no longer the case, yet we stagger on with a nonsensical method of deciding who will have total control of the nation's parliament, resources and destiny for several years ahead.

The system is also extremely unfair to other parties. While I am of course delighted with the success of the SNP and no admirer of Ukip, it makes no sense that the four million votes Ukip won gave them just one Westminster MP, while the SNP's 1.5 million votes, all in Scotland, delivered a staggering 56 seats.

It is long past time that a proper system of proportional representation was introduced, to ensure that the balance of MPs accurately mirrored the expressed wishes of the electorate. If that leads to coalitions, so be it.

The behaviour and latest utterings of David Cameron about there being no second referendum are beginning to prove the old adage that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. He should remember the profound remark of one of his predecessors, Harold Macmillan, warning of the effects of "events, dear boy, events".

Iain A D Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.

David Cameron once described Parliament as "half like a museum, half like a church and half like a school". Apart from the problem with his arithmetic what we have is a description of a building closer to a Victorian public school than a place where positive and progressive politics take place. The Palace of Westminster is unfit for purpose and the group of SNP MPs going to this building should not accept easily the rites, rituals and traditions of the House of Commons.

A look at Factsheet G7, Some Traditions and Customs of the House of Commons, will give you a flavour of the absurd way that MPs have to go about their business. Indeed, the programme Inside Parliament shown on the BBC highlighted many more "traditions" that should be swept out of a modern democratic Parliament.

The comparison between the Scottish Parliament and the House of Commons is stark. The old guard will rail against any real changes to the archaic set up found in the House of Commons but nobody would organize a Parliament along the lines of Westminster in the 21st century.

The Conservatives will use their majority to pass laws quickly, laws which will harm the people and communities of Scotland. All the Members of Parliament representing the Scottish National Party and attending Westminster next week will be expected to "work tirelessly to spread our positive message of progressive politics to benefit Scotland and the whole UK" but they must also avoid accepting conditions which actually work against this aim being achieved.

James Waugh,

Nether Currie Crescent, Currie.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on May 10, Nicola Sturgeon stated: "I said expressly to people in Scotland that if they voted SNP, and half of the Scottish population did, I would not take that as an endorsement of independence." The First Minister seldom makes an error, but here she did.

Half the population of Scotland did not vote for the SNP. If I may correct her, it is indisputable that half of those who voted in the parliamentary election did vote for the SNP, but this was only half of a 71.1 per cent turnout which is 35.55 per cent of the population registered on the voter's roll; a considerable shortfall from half of the population. Perhaps we should consider this when assessing the current support for independence in Scotland.

However, Ms Sturgeon does appear to be correct in thinking that, despite the SNP's astounding landslide victory in the recent parliamentary election, a referendum on independence in the near future would be unwise.

H. Calcluth,

23 Steeple Street,

Kilbarchan.

Sheila Meechan writes that "only 35 per cent of Scots voted SNP" (Letters, May 12). Actually it was 35 per cent of the electorate. But I wonder if she is happy to be governed by a Tory administration that gained only 23.8 per cent of the vote.

Roger Graham,

23 Cullen Crescent,

Inverkip.

WHAT a truly shocking General Election. However, as a Conservative voter, "one mustn't gloat, but I'm gloating, and I'm gloating like hell", as Willie Whitelaw once opined. Most Unionists in Scotland are quite happy to be governed by a Tory and English administration, simply because it was elected by our fellow British citizens, who in rUK showed great sense in rejecting socialism in greater numbers than ever before. Somewhat sad though I, with my political past, am to have to say it, the Labour Party everywhere got what it deserved.

Here the Nationalists have achieved a great success. I, for one, do not congratulate them nor do I wish them well: that would be utter cant. They have achieved their overwhelming victory by peddling the divisive identity politics of ethnic and cultural difference, and by filling the associated ideological void with a socialistic redistributionist policy towards the working class and the underclass. This strategy has demonised and intends to fleece those who have worked hard for what they have, to fund through calamitously higher taxes and state borrowing a client state of welfare and public service supplicants. For the latter, a sense of entitlement has displaced the urge to self-betterment.

Nevertheless, Unionists have to recognise that the world has turned upside down. In Scotland the SNP have cornered the market for socialism, and in England fewer and fewer voters are interested in it. In both countries the Liberal Democrats have no serious market left. Between them, the Tories and the SNP have decapitated the Labour and LibDem leaderships, leaving both parties bereft and rudderless. In truth, there would appear to be no way back for either party. Their only hope is a "Blairite" social democrat merger of the like-minded, leaving the true socialists to pursue their goals with the Nationalists and Greens, and the libertarians with the Conservatives.

As for the Conservatives, having saved market capitalism, they must now save the Union from the antediluvian SNP. Here's how. First, Westminster should grant full fiscal autonomy (including North Sea oil revenues) to the Scottish Parliament immediately. The Barnett Formula should be scrapped and replaced by a block grant which would vary inversely with both the oil revenues and with the overall level of taxation set by Holyrood, but in both these circumstances to be less than what is necessary to fund Scotland's current bloated level of public expenditure. People like me would be compelled to pay higher taxes initially, but this would be a small price to pay to maintain the Union. As people would soon discover, there is no such thing as a free lunch, even less so in an independent Scotland, amazing though that might be.

Secondly, after the above is in place but before any popular vote on membership of the EU, Westminster should sanction another independence referendum in Scotland and, separately but simultaneously, an independence referendum for the rUK. The result would be final. A Yes vote by either or both areas would end the Union honourably and fairly. At 68, I, for one, cannot be doing with this Scottish separatist nonsense hanging over me for the remainder of my days.

Richard Mowbray,

14 Ancaster Drive, Glasgow.

As a Conservative supporter I would now like to publicly thank Nicola Sturgeon for her part in achieving the re-election of our new government. Without her continual insistence that she would, despite Labour's denials, form an alliance with Ed Milliband's party of lefty losers, to thwart the toxic Tories, then Labour might just have held on to many of those seats lost in the dying days of the campaign. If this is a great result for the Conservatives, it is an even better one for the SNP. How much easier will it be for them to espouse the politics of grievance against the bogeymen of the right and to progress their march to independence. Nicola Sturgeon is a class act, a master of strategy and a politician of Machiavellian brilliance.

It is now almost inevitable that the SNP will, when they judge the time to be right, precipitate another referendum. Forget solemn promises of "once in a generation", the next referendum will come when the SNP deem the time to be ripe. And if they should again fail, then we will have another one at some future date and so on until they achieve success. That being the case surely it is totally unfair that any such plebiscite should be settled by a simple majority. Given that those opposed to independence only have to lose once, any such momentous change must be at the behest of a substantial majority of the population. I would suggest that nothing less than a majority of at least 60 per cent would be sufficient.

Jim Meikle

41 Lampson Road

Killearn

I am pleased to hear David Cameron reassuring us that the Conservative party is "the real party for working people." Ed Milliband always campaigned on behalf of "hard working" people, but Nicola Sturgeon promised to end austerity for "ordinary" working people. Exactly how has always been a puzzle to me, but where does that leave extraordinary people?

John Sinclair,

7, Bridgegait,

Milngavie.

As a Californian of Scottish decent, I watch with keen interest the evolving place that Scotland plays within the United Kingdom and the world. As an overseas interested observer, I would suggest that Scotland propose a name change from the United Kingdom to the United Kingdoms, recognising the importance of Scotland as a separate entity. This would give time for hashing out the place Scotland plays within the nation and the world.

It might be that Scotland would be one state, and England, Ireland, and Wales would be other states which would compose the United Kingdoms.

Of course, I am using the American model of individual states as an example. Many of us in California feel a stronger allegiance to our state than we do to the nation. Often American national actions seem crazy to us. Many Americans say that when the nation tilted, all that wasn't tied down fell into California. We're seen as a state full of fruits and nuts. So be it. But we're free to continually innovate and, also, make our own blunders. We find ourselves both admired and ridiculed, as is Scotland.

Congratulations on your election. Good luck with your choices.

John Duncan Turner III,

35 Gilson Road,

Occidental, California, 94565,

USA.

AS the dust begins the settle after the General Election it is the issue of Europe, as was the case for John Major's Conservative administration between 1992 and 1997, that will dominate the early years of Mr Cameron's second term.

Like Mr Major, Mr Cameron enjoys a wafer-thin majority. In the case of the former this was 21 and for the latter a mere, if unexpected, 12 MPs. And it is against this background that Mr Cameron has pledged "fundamental" reform of the European Union, putting this deal or EU withdrawal to the electorate in a referendum in the next two years, an issue that will prove deeply divisive.

It is highly unlikely that Mr Cameron will be able to achieve the level of reforms expected by his backbenchers. There is, for example, no desire from the French and Germans to open up the treaties and embark on the major reform of key issues such as immigration, with a key principle of EU membership being free movement.

It was 200 years ago this year that the course of Europe's history changed with the Battle of Waterloo, located in what is now Belgium. Mr Cameron will need to keep his wits about him to ensure that he does not meet his Waterloo when he returns from the Brussels negotiations, ending up facing a similar fate to that endured by John Major, who faced with backbench rebellions over the Maastricht Treaty ended up being turfed out of office in a crushing electoral defeat.

Alex Orr,

Flat 2, 77 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh.

10.