Bishop Colin Buchanan’s views should be more widely disseminated. Roger Bolton could have been more helpful in promoting STV in his interview with Bishop Colin on the "Sunday" programme on 14th June. He on the contrary in effect dismissed the Bishop’s arguments with the usual phoney argument about unstable government under "PR" - "look at Italy!"

Of course to expect any support for PR of any kind from anyone in the BBC would be unrealistic - indeed I have heard it suggested that they have been "got at" by the government, anxious to avoid anything drawing attention to their 1997 electoral reform commitments or above all their cynical reneging on these commitments So could it be that, as a matter of policy, presenters are required either to side-step the issue or defend the current undemocrtic first-past-the-post system as always in fact they seem to do?

I was moved to e-mail Roger Bolton as below. As expected I have not received any reply; nor of course was there any mention of it on the Feedback programme

"Dear Roger,

I was interested in your discussion with Bishop Colin Buchanan on your programme Sunday ( Sunday June 14th) which came round to electoral reform. As one would expect, Bishop Colin - closely associated as he is with the Electoral Reform Society - supported the Single Transferable Vote.

The one absolutely essential reform is to get rid of the current electoral system - first-past-the-post (FPTP) - which however many members of both main parties wish to hang onto for tribalist party reasons.

That Bishop Buchanan should have the opportunity, rare indeed on the BBC, to express his views on electoral systems was welcome. I was, however, disappointed at your apparent support for retaining the present system, and at your assumption that PR means the Italian closed list system. This is one myth among many deliberately fostered by the two main parties and is particularly hypocritical on the part of David Cameron since the Tory party is the party that in 1973 introduced STV into Northern Ireland.

To precede this change they produced an excellent pamphlet enthusiastically explaining the merits of STV, and by implication the shortcomings of FPTP. STV is the system that the Irish Republic have also used successfully for many years. It is significant that oppponents of reform always refer to Italy and never to either Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic.- or indeed the many PR systems used for many years in the EU. (The UK is the only EU country using the antediluvian FPTP system for its main legislature.)

I attach a scan of the Northern Ireland pamphlet which Feedback and Sunday may in present circumstances perhaps find interesting and useful.

Finally I would emphasise that nobody campaigning for reform would call for anything like the Italian system ;and the majority are calling for STV as recommended by the Electoral Reform Society.

Kind regards
Joe Patterson