Letter: What about the majority who didn't vote for Kaufman?

GERALD KAUFMAN (Diary, 27 September) unwittingly highlights two of the main arguments in favour of electoral reform.

He states that many Liberal Democrat MPs owe their election to tactical voting by Labour supporters. I suspect that even more Labour MPs have Liberal Democrat voters to thank. In both cases supporters of one party voted for a different one because they didn't want a candidate from a third party to be elected. Lib Dems voting tactically didn't want a Labour government, but wanted a Tory one even less.

Only those in marginal seats had the luxury of voting tactically, anyway. In hundreds of "safe" seats a lot of people felt their vote would make no difference and didn't bother to vote at all. This produced poor turn- outs, particularly in "safe" Labour seats - such as 56 per cent in Mr Kaufman's own Gorton constituency.

H R CLEAVER

London, E18