IT is somewhat disconcerting that a major political party, the Liberal Democrats, should sabotage legislation designed to improve the fairness of our democratic process ("Tories turn on LibDems after boundary humiliation", The Herald January 30).

The proposal to adjust constituency boundaries to ensure that everyone's vote carries more or less the same weight (with the exception of Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland and Isle of Wight where voters would wield considerably more electoral clout than those on the mainland) is not one with which the LibDems disagree. No democrat could.

Rather their stance is born simply out of anger at not achieving their cherished Lords reform. They prohibit one democratic reform because they do not achieve what they perceive as another democratic reform.

Perhaps they should consider removing the word democrat from their nomenclature.

David S W Williamson,

49 Pinnaclehill Park,

Kelso.