Letter: Parliament loses vote of confidence

Sir: Have not the events of the last week demonstrated that it is time for democracy to be introduced into the House of Commons, in the shape of a secret ballot? The technology for enabling members to vote electronically without leaving their seats, so doing away with the medieval shuffling from room to room and the Cro-Magnon behaviour of the Whips, is simple and inexpensive. To allow constituents to monitor their MPs' performance, the same technology could keep a confidential record of each member's voting to be published only before an election and after candidates have been selected.

I expect that all of the party organisations will be opposed to this, just as most of the general public will be for it; the question, once again, is how do we get our rogue representatives to do what we require of them?

Yours faithfully,

CLIVE EXTON

London, N1

25 July