In STV News 11/05 (the latest edition of my irregular e-newsletter), I mentioned that Alan Wilcox had suggested in http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-never-mention-stv-again-25276.html that electoral reformers should change the name of STV and I asked for readers’ reaction. Those receive so far are repeated below. Please feel free to blog your own comments.

John Probert:

“Heaven Forbid! STV isn’t in any sense a “British” idea (unless maybe a Brit. was smart enough to invent it!).
It’s a universally valid concept and it would be very demeaning to pander to the baser instincts of nationalism by calling it “British” Proportional Representation.
And why gratuitously upset the Irish? Anyway – aren’t we all (except UKIP) Europeans now?”

Comment: It’s true that it is a universally valid concept but, actually, a Brit (Thomas Wright Hill) first proposed transferable voting in 1821 and another Brit (Thomas Hare) is generally credited with the conception of STV in the 1850s. I discovered very recently that it was once called “British Proportional Representation”.

Colin Buchanan:

“Having sold STV for Council elections in an international professional body to which I belong (and acted as returning officer for 24 years for them), I am extremely doubtful about claiming it is 'British' (even if Mill and Hare have the initiating credit). One wouldn't want to sell universal suffrage, or secret ballots, or scrupulous methods of counting as 'British' - they are clearly right, and in no sense sectional or partisan. So I urge retention of a name on the tin which describes what is in it.
We could perhaps redub FPTP this way (as you know, I am very doubtful about the usefulness of the existing title as a boo-word - the NO campaign even made a virtue of it). Suppose we dub them the 'British Random Electoral System'?”

Comment: Or perhaps we could reduce some of FPTP’s apparent simplicity by using its more formal name, “Single Member Plurality system”.

Piers Milne:

“For what it's worth, I absolutely hate the BPR mouthful and think it would be an absolute disaster as a name. STV in the short form may also have had its day. However, the full name, by containing the word Single, could still be a winner because it automatically thwarts the "people would get more than one vote" killer which the No campaign used to devastating effect against AV in the Referendum last year. Also STV was seldom mentioned during the Referendum, in either the short or full forms, except as a future goal, and no part of the AV Yes campaign made more than passing reference to it, so it didn't attract the abuse and invective that AV did and might continue to be a "marketable product". If it is actually effective to appeal to the traditionalists, how about: "The New Single British Vote"?”