A Labour landslide on 37% of the vote? That makes the case for PR

The Guardian
·1-min read
<span>‘Both Labour and the Tories are being anti-democratic in opposing electoral reform,’ says Dr Guy Standing.</span><span>Photograph: Getty</span>
‘Both Labour and the Tories are being anti-democratic in opposing electoral reform,’ says Dr Guy Standing.Photograph: Getty

An opinion poll last week put Labour at 37%, Reform at 19% and the Tories on 18%. Yet everybody predicts a Labour landslide. This is absurd and shows just how undemocratic Britain has become. If the turnout is roughly the same as in 2019, then Labour will gain absolute control of government with the support of merely a quarter of the electorate. We need a better word for it, but this is surely minoritism. Both Labour and the Tories are being anti-democratic in opposing electoral reform.
Dr Guy Standing
Soas University of London

• “Does Labour’s manifesto deliver what the country needs?” asks the headline on your article (13 June). Yes. Get them elected, and then let them “rock the boat”, in the words of one of the replies from your panel of experts.
Mary Cawston
London

• I do not recall Grant Shapps being at all concerned about the dangers of a landslide majority in 2019 (Tories fighting to prevent Labour winning ‘supermajority’, says Shapps, 12 June).
Julia Johnson
Cambridge

• I had no idea that an American robin was actually a thrush, but the letters page of Friday’s Guardian print edition gave me this information twice: in both the country diary and a letter about Mary Poppins.
Roy Harrison
Old Down, Gloucestershire

• Should anybody be surprised at outbreaks of E coli when salad leaves are washed in privatised water (Supermarket sandwich suppliers issue recall amid UK E coli outbreak, 14 June)?
Paul Kennedy
Ilkley, West Yorkshire

• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

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