LETTER: Challenges to MPs' assertions

Over time, a number of correspondents, myself included, have sought to challenge some of the more questionable assertions in those columns via letters to the WSCT.

So far none have elicited the courtesy of a reply from either MP in the paper.

At the start of a new year, may I suggest our MPs make a resolution to reply to such letters?

They can start by answering the following previously raised questions:

Their position on the lack of real democratic representation in the House of Commons when in the May 2015 election, the Conservatives gained 52 per cent of seats with 36 per cent of votes cast (or 24 per cent of votes of those entitled to vote) and the SNP gained 56 seats with 1.4 million votes whilst UKIP gained one seat with 4 million votes?

Why is ‘first past the post’ right for Westminster when all other UK Assembly and EC elections are under Proportional Representation (PR) and the Tories voted against a proposed change to a PR system for Westminster?

Their questioning the right of the House of Lords to hold up legislation on changes to tax credits, when it was the Tory group in the House of Commons that defeated a plan to reform the House of Lords and make it an elected chamber?

Why they have only just recognised the decades old inequity in per pupil funding in West Sussex schools when some of us have been pointing such disparity for over 30 years? A time when for all bar five years, the county council has been under Conservative control and there have been long periods of Conservative Government; both of whom could have addressed the issue?

Why both MPs have been relatively silent on the proposed development in North Horsham and the flawed plan since adopted by their Conservative colleagues on the council?

A silence made more surprising by Mr Quin’s latest pronouncement (WSCT 31/12/15) against Gatwick development due to lack of adequate rail capacity, when the same argument on lack of rail capacity applies to North Horsham!

I look forward to reading their responses.

L.N. PRICE

Smithbarn, Horsham

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