Our electoral system needs an overhaul
From: David Collins, Scissett.
HOPEFULLY we can get Brexit started soon. We then urgently need to have a look at our electoral system.
Labour had a reduction in votes of 7.9 per cent and lost 59 seats.
The biggest beneficiary of this was the Liberal Democrats whose votes increased by 4.2 per cent and they lost one seat.
Next were the Brexit Party with a two per cent increase and no seats.
Greens increased by 1.1 per cent and no new seats.
Conservatives increased by 1.2 per cent and 47 new seats.
SNP increased their vote by 0.8 per cent and gained 13 seats.
As this is a national election there is obviously something drastically wrong with our method of allocating seats.
I think there are too many MPs at 650. We should reduce this by half. One of the biggest failings at present is that too much time and effort is spent on constituency matters that could be transferred to the Citizens Advice Bureau and be more professionally handled. The House of Lords or a second chamber should be reduced to a more manageable 200.
From: Ian Richardson, Railway Street, Beverley.
SUDDENLY everyone on the left is an expert on what went wrong on Thursday. For millions of us it is a doubly devastating defeat, as it heralds not just five years of a brand of Conservatism many of us fear but also comes with the bitter pill of Brexit to swallow over the next five weeks.
To compound the gloom still more, only in Scotland can we see progressive politics on the march and the more the SNP prosper, the more likely they are to leave the rest of the UK to the kind of politics that has given a man like Boris Johnson such immense power.
Of all the lessons to learn from Thursday, and there will be many, one surmounts all others – you can’t succeed with leaders who do not have a broad appeal.
Without credible leadership, the best of policies largely fall on deaf ears.
Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson were both hapless, hopeless at delivering votes.
The first step on the long rocky road back for both parties is to select far more effective successors to challenge what, I must concede, are the considerable political skills of Boris Johnson.
From: Thomas W Jefferson, Batty Lane, Howdwen, Goole.
IN the aftermath of the general election, the following Shakespearean quotations seem apt.
For the once proud Labour Party, now reduced to a Corbian rump, the slightly adapted words of Antony on seeing the crumpled remains of the assassinated Caesar: “O mighty Labour! dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure?”.
For the Lib-Dems, unsurprisingly, a tragedy: Macbeth “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other”.
For the Conservatives, who now have to convert opportunity into achievement, Brutus, on the eve of battle: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads onto fortune; Omitted and all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in misery.
“On such a full sea are we now afloat; And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”
From: Mr R Turner, Hollybank Avenue, Upper Cumberworth, Bakersfield.
WHAT a fantastic election result. The electorate got its own back.
Hopefully most who lost their seats were the ones who ignored and treated their constituents with utter disregard on the EU referendum result, now they can take their own medicine.
Sorry Yvette Cooper managed to survive, she really needed to go. Now I hope Boris Johnson finishes the job to get us out of the EU, no deal the preferred start, and build from the bottom.
Rebuild and back up Britain’s priorities and stop the derogatory attitudes that have developed from being under the EU domination.
From; M.K. O’Sullivan, Victoria Street, Allerton Bywater, Castleford.
FOLLOWING the election, the taste of Schadenfreude still lingers pleasantly.
I think of the dismay among those who have tried so hard to nullify the referendum result – Hilary Benn, Barry Sheerman, Richard Burgon, Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper, Mary Creagh come to mind.
I think, too, how bitter Friday breakfast will have tasted for the likes of Gina Miller, the arch Remainer, and also for the UK Supreme Court judges.
Far be it for me to advise Liberal Democrats on what to do from here, but unbridled arrogance like we saw from Jo Swinson turns many off.
Am I blind to the faults of Boris Johnson? I am not. Look at Jeremy Corbyn, Swinson and see why voting for him was the only answer.
From: Mark Elliott, Ferrensby, Knaresborough.
THE reasons for the demise of Labour in the electoral “red wall” can be summed up quite simply: the metropolitan elite London leadership of the party spent far too much time worrying about causes such as Palestine whilst completely forgetting about places like Penistone.
From: Terence Hammond, Woolgreaves Drive, Sandal, Wakefield.
UPON seeing a picture of Jacob Rees-Mogg in one of your publications with his son Peter Theodore Alphege reminded me of the Inspector Morse episode where, upon discovering Morse’s Christian name is Endevour, Lewis exclaims “you poor sod”.
From: Phyllis Capstick, Hellifield.
WE must “Get Brexit Done” on our own terms, not European Union terms. Our parents and grandparents, the wise elders whispering in our ears, as Boris Johnson put it, knew the absolute horrors of two world wars.