No Alternative
Sir: James Forsyth’s article on George Osborne’s machinations for a Conservative majority (‘Osborne is becoming the true Tory leader’, 26 June) at the next election failed to mention the most crucial matter — the Alternative Vote. We can assume there will definitely be a referendum on AV; so the only question is what the country’s decision will be. A casual perusal of the election result by constituency leads any reasonable person to see that, if Lib supporters put Lab second and vice versa, then the Conservative party can never again have a majority. And for those who say some socialist party supporters may put Tory second — no chance. They did not witness the class-hatred campaigns in the West country.
In addition, the BBC will very likely throw its considerable influence behind a Yes vote. Many Brits spend five hours a day slumped in front of the television and take their political views from what it tells them — as we saw in the election. And as the majority of the electorate does not vote Tory, it may well vote for a measure that would destroy the party. The concession on AV may well turn out to have been catastrophic for the Tories. Conservative energies would be best focused on how to win a No campaign.
Charles D.B. Pugh
London SW10
The future of Belgium
Sir: William Cook’s prescient article (‘Belgium meets its Waterloo’, 26 June) gives a most interesting account of the centrifugal and fissiparous tendencies at work in modern Belgium. Looking back almost 100 years, the territorial integrity of Belgium was the immediate casus belli of our engagement in the first world war. Today, while we grimly bear the very sad and painful daily news that one, two, three of our soldiers have been killed or maimed in Afghanistan, can we for a moment imagine a media announcement now saying that ‘Today 20,000 of our soldiers were killed on this the very first day of the Somme offensive’? By the end in 1918, this noble sacrifice amounted to nearly a million men from Great Britain and Ireland and the empire.
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