Readers may not be aware that the Boundary Commission is currently undertaking a review of parliamentary constituencies.

You can write to the commission (up to April 4) or have your say (10 minutes only) at Dorchester on March 31, or April 1.

What’s it all about? Primarily tinkering with English constituency boundaries to ensure that they are all roughly the same size (69,724 - 77,062 voters). Will it improve our democracy? Not in the least. Our first-past-the-post system is hopelessly undemocratic.

If you take the total number of votes cast for each party (2019 general election) and divide by the number of MPs elected you’ll find that it required 850,000 votes to elect one Green MP; 336,000 votes for each Lib Dem MP; 51,000 votes for each Labour MP; 39,000 votes for each Conservative MP and 26,000 for each SNP MP. Hardly fair, is it?

Why does this happen? Because under our first-past-the-post system it is only the winner’s votes that count.

All other votes are dis-regarded and this results in a Parliament that is not representative of the views of the nation.

What’s the answer? Proportional representation, used throughout Europe and most of the rest of the (democratic) world.

So why not here?

GRAHAM BOORER

Ferndown