Philip Hawkins’ letter (May 15) suggests that voting for parties other than Conservative or Labour at the general election proved to be a waste of time under the first-past-the-post system.

Accordingly, he wishes to replace the current voting system with proportional representation now that there are more national political parties.

However, there are very good reasons to support the system we have.

For example, we narrowly escaped the dreadful prospect of having a small unpopular party, like the Liberal Democrats, being in a position to blackmail the two main parties either into adopting policies which most people reject or into renouncing policies which most people support.

Sometimes the existing system permits this to happen – and this is unfortunate.

Yet to change to a system making such an outcome the norm would be a very stupid thing to do.

What people overlook is that power is not exercised in this country in proportion to the number of seats a governing party has in the House of Commons.

If a government has a safe overall majority of, for example, 50 seats then it has 100 per cent power to get its legislation through.

If it has a majority of 100, 150 or 200 seats, it still has 100 per cent power to get all its legislation through.

By contrast, if a government does not have a safe overall majority, then the small parties on which it must depend (including factions within its own ranks) can wield grossly disproportionate power far in excess of this level of support in the country.

There is a lot going for firstpast-the-post.

Let’s keep it.

DOROTHY FUDGE, Totton.