Letter: In the party lists

Sir: Whilst having much sympathy for your correspondents John Bennett and Richard Bartle, who indicated their intention to spoil their ballot papers in next month's European elections, I must disagree with them.

It would be more constructive for them to vote for the Liberal Democrat lists in their regions in the sure knowledge that the members of those lists have been approved by all the party members in those regions who, crucially, also selected the order in which the names appear in those lists.

They can also be confident that they would be voting for a party which shares their anxiety that the first foray into a fair proportional system of voting should be done in this authoritarian and "Big Brother" way. Had the Government listened to the Liberal Democrat argument that the best way forward would have been to extend the Single Transferable Vote system for these elections from Northern Ireland to the whole of the United Kingdom, we would now have a system with which your correspondents would, hopefully, have been entirely satisfied.

BOB TOMLIN

Caterham, Surrey