Vote thoughts

Monica Holman ("Politics needs to change, not the voting system")gets straight to the heart of the matter.

I doubt there is any more than a handful of politicians who arecapable of doing anything exceptionally well and certainly not tothe standard of those gainfully employed who must make a living infree markets. Whatever is of value and importance in our communityis actually done by people who are not politicians: admittedlyGovernment can alter the incentives and penalties attendant upondifferent forms of civil conduct but as long experience tells us,their "cures" are often worse than the "disease".

As Dr Johnson wisely said 240 years ago: "I would not give half aguinea to live under one form of Government rather than another. Itis of no moment to the happiness of an individual". Putting it evenmore pithily was his contemporary, Lord Chesterfield, who remarkedon "the singular ill luck of this, my dear country, which as long asever I remember it, and as far back as I have read, has always beengoverned by the only two or three people, out of two or threemillions, totally incapable of governing, and unfit to be trusted".

Their chief pastime is a form of smoke-screening - spewing outmasses of ill-judged legislation to demonstrate how active they arein their self-important fixations - and legislation which at best isconfused, contradictory, inept and often quite unintelligible to themass of people and therefore chiefly ignored.

Does anyone ever get the form of government they regard as havingjustified their support? I think not.

How can any of us vote for less government and for laws whichmeet with general assent? If there is no sensible answer to thatquestion we may well ask what is the point of voting other than as ademonstration that we have a choice - a choice which is not worthexercising. Belgium has now been for a year without a government andunsurprisingly its people have been able to manage their livessuccessfully without being buffeted this way and that by politicalmeddlers thus ably demonstrating that "No government is better thanbad government".

Many will not know that the "first past the post" system derivesfrom the fact that as the population grew it became counter-productive to solve disputes by weight of arms (in which themajority usually won the battle) and transformed it into the weightof votes.

Is this a proper way to conduct our business in the mostdeveloped and scientifically blessed society known to history? Isubmit that only a fool would answer "yes". The same effort as wasmade for the Space Race should be put into developing moreenlightened and less ignorantly interventionist means of governingour peoples without which we invite disaster as successiveGovernments gather only minority support once the majority find itbest to express their disaffection by withholding their vote.

Philip Binding

Sidcot