Letter: Plot against PR?

Sir: Patricia Graham (letter, 12 June) rightly points out that the system on which voting took place at the recent Euro-elections wasn't proportional representation, or anything remotely like it. She then asks when our politicians will "stop treating us like village idiots and allow us to exercise some subtlety and discrimination".

The answer, I am afraid, is never, if they can help it. The leaders of all three parties are perfectly aware that their ordinary voters, and even paid-up party members, are split from top to bottom on all important issues both of European and of domestic policies. The last thing they want is for voters to be able to choose representatives from their respective parties who have different views from the leaders' own. This would be possible with real PR, but not with the system which we have just been using.