Forget FPTP or PR, give us SVP instead

I completely agree with Pablo John (SLP Opinion, June 9) that the next election must be the last under the current first-past-the-post system, which is now clearly not fit for purpose.

But he then goes on to confuse electoral reform generally with Proportional Representation (PR), which like all systems has its benefits and drawbacks, the latter in PR’s case including the dangerous one of the tail sometimes wagging the dog, as happens in, for example, Australia and – disastrously – Israel.

But all that is needed to ‘ensure’, to quote Pablo John, “that every vote counts”, is to introduce the much less controversial and more easily understood Single Transferable Vote (STV), whereby each elector numbers all the candidates in his or her order of preference.

This immediately means they are voting positively for the candidates they really want, rather than, as now, negatively against the one candidate they definitely don’t want.

Job done.

Ken Hosking, SW18

Picture: Pixabay/Mohamed_hassan