Is Britain actually a centre-left state?

In MetroTalk: Readers discuss tactical voting, electoral reform, and selfish politicians (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Do you agree with our readers? Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments.

‘We need proportional representation’, reader says every vote must count

Contrary to what people say, Labour didn’t win a ‘landslide’ election last year – they got a mere 34 per cent of the votes cast but 63 per cent of the 650 seats.

That’s a consequence of our broken first-past-the-post system. In Europe, it’s only us and Belarus that use this hideously undemocratic system.

The old-gang parties will resist electoral reform – after all, it keeps them on the Westminster gravy train. We need proportional representation, where every vote counts. James Burns, Altrincham

This reader says ‘our broken first-past-the-post system” is ‘hideously undemocratic’ (Picture: Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Bringing the ‘people of the nation together should be the starting point of every party’s manifesto’, says reader

What a great comment from Tony (MetroTalk, Thu) regarding the divisiveness of some politicians.

I wholeheartedly agree they should aim to bring the people of the nation (their voters) together. It should be a mandatory starting point for the outline of every party’s manifesto.

I work overseas as a teacher and come back to London every summer.

An example of the division I see is in the divisive language used. In a conversation with the Reform UK candidate in my area, I was seen as an ‘expat’ working abroad. For those born in other countries and working here, they were ‘migrant workers’ or ‘immigrant workers’.

Let’s really listen to what is being said, see who is trying to divide us and find out what their real reasoning is for doing so. Trev Nunes, Port Harcourt (Nigeria) 
And London

Reader says Farage and Trump ‘are only interested in themselves’

Farage, like Donald Trump in the US, is just a politician and we should realise by now that such people are only interested in themselves.

They are thus unlikely to either care about the effects of what they say on other people’s lives or even to know whether what they say is realistic.

A look at the Office For National Statistics figures will reveal that while nobody can be quite sure of the truth, there appeared to be a net migration figure of about 400,000 in 2024.

These people will be just the same as everybody else (including those who emigrate from these shores). Some will be honest, some crooked, some murderers some trafficked, some even possibly as ridiculous as Nigel Farage. Hugh, London

This reader says both Farage and Trump are ‘unlikely to care about the effects of what they say on people’s lives’ (Picture: Getty Images)

‘A policy of paying tyrannical regimes is the introduction of a human-trafficking policy that has not existed since the slave trade’, says reader

Undoubtedly there is substantial support for Mr Farage’s attack on our immigration crisis.

Certainly something positive needs to be done. But a policy of paying tyrannical regimes such as Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan to accept the return of asylum seekers who have fled oppression is the introduction of an abhorrent human-trafficking policy that has not existed since the infamous slave trade.

It would condone, aid and support the continuance of such regimes. Surely no British citizen could possibly vote to finance such an evil scheme.

Mr Farage would do better to engage the United Nations in joining forces in a forceful endeavour to eradicate the causes of this exodus to Europe. He might also question how it is that so many migrants manage to reach the French coast to venture farther to our shores.

We should, indeed, ask who were the initial instigators of the crisis that we 
face today.

Who financed and militarised the Taliban to keep Russia out of Afghanistan? Who connived the downfall of Iran’s elected prime minister after the Shah fled to the US because of his intention to nationalise his country’s oil industry and reduce the West’s highly profitable control of it?

If my relating of these events is inaccurate, I stand to be corrected. Michael Jones, London

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