MOLLY Scott Cato’s delusional remarks published in the letters section of in last week’s Bridport News cannot be left unchallenged.

She may remember that some years ago a referendum on proportional representation was put to the nation and rejected.

The fact is, we have the system of democracy that we have and to call it undemocratic as she does is quite untrue and bordering on a smear.

She may not like it, but the reason why there are so many Conservative politicians serving constituencies in the south west is because they gained the largest number of votes.

People vote for the party they have most confidence in. Thereafter they must leave it to the government to decide what’s best, whether it be cuts to social services, a hard Brexit, or anything else. If they don’t like what it is doing, they can vote differently at the next election. 

Democracy is not a matter of degree but of fact. There are disadvantages to both proportional representation and first past the post, not least in the former case, fudge.

For my part I would be embarrassed to be working as an MEP if as she says she did she gained a mere 11 per cent plus of the vote, and on what was probably a very low turn-out too. It is not a mandate.

As for Molly Scott Cato’s linkage of the suffragette movement with proportional representation, that is quite absurd. The two have nothing to do with each other.

Quite apart from anything else, it is not without interest that one does not see passionate advocates of proportional representation chaining themselves to railings, throwing themselves onto a race track, slashing the most priceless works of art, and so on. I wonder why not.

I’m sure Molly Scott Cato is to be commended for her fast but I do wish she hadn’t advertised the fact in a virtue-signalling sort of way. It’s just a tad tawdry. People who think they are doing good things do not announce the matter through a newspaper.

In any case, to my mind, the suffragists as opposed to the suffragettes should be commemorated rather more than the latter. They were just as successful in getting the women’s vote but went about their protests peacefully and within the law.

EDMUND ROMILLY
Barrack Street