I WOULD first like to thank the electors of Uplands for re-electing me as their district councillor and I will seek to serve them to the best of my abilities whether they voted for me or not.

In writing I would like to make a couple of observations on the threats to our democracy posed by our current electoral system.

It cannot be right, as happened in the Nailsworth Town Council election, that the outcome of democracy is decided by the toss of a coin, equally it cannot be right in a multi-party democracy that councillors in single seat contests are elected by less than 50 per cent of those voting.

It is therefore time for the the ‘first past the post’ vote to be replaced by a single transferable vote system in all elections and I hope that Corbyn’s visionary leadership will put this principle before the voters in 2020.

Whilst I appreciate the good intentions of the individual voter registration system it is of concern that this process does appear to be excluding groups like private renters (who often move quite frequently) and young people.

A specific issue identified by the Electoral Commission is a 40 per cent reduction in the registration of people aged 16 and 17 and it is clear from my own election campaign that many private renters are not getting on the register.

I have no doubt that the speeding up of the introduction of the new system was done for political advantage by the Conservative Government.

It is therefore perhaps ironic that the first casualty could be David Cameron himself as young people are more likely to vote Yes for Europe than other groups.

Given the closeness of the vote their exclusion could give victory to the barmy army of the outers.

There is probably a limited amount that can now be done now for the Referendum but in the longer term I think there needs to be a fundamental rethink of what political organisations, schools colleges, businesses, trade unions and civil society generally can do to actively promote voter registration and encourage political engagement.

If we don’t our democracy is under serious threat.

Chas Townley

Uplands