OF last week’s Bournemouth local election results, Conservative Party Councillor Peter Charon said: “It seems our message resonated with the residents of Bournemouth. It wasn’t a close result.”

However, the Conservative Party received just over 64,500 votes, ie, 51 per cent of the votes cast. All others combined received over 62,500 votes, ie, 49 per cent of votes cast.

Despite this, the Conservatives now have 45 of 54 seats on the council, ie, about 83 per cent of the seats, leaving the others with nine, ie, about 17 per cent of the seats. Would it be fair to suggest then that almost exactly half of those who voted will be unhappy with last Thursday’s outcome?

Of course, we cannot simply take all the ‘others’ to be inherently anti-Conservative. Some of them may approve of many, but clearly not all Conservatives policies. We can’t know this for sure, however, not without asking people to express their preferences (as with the alternative vote).

Somewhere in the north of the country, Conservative voters will have been similarly ignored by the outrageously disproportionate outcomes of First Past The Post. The only remedy is a proportionally representative system (ironically, perhaps something like ‘AV plus’).

CONOR NIALL O’LUBY, Throop Road, Bournemouth