Ex-Speaker backs voting reform calls

The case for electoral reform is now unanswerable, Baroness Boothroyd, the former speaker of the House of Commons, said yesterday.

In a hard-hitting statement, she described the present "first past the post" system as unfair, fostering disillusion and inviting anarchy.

She declared: "The 21st century has no place for a system in which millions of voters are ignored because our elections are stacked against them."

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Lady Boothroyd, right, added: "The last Parliament disgraced itself and betrayed the country's trust by its behaviour. The nation will not tolerate a repetition."

Lady Boothroyd who sits in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher, was a Labour MP before becoming speaker, the first woman to hold that office.

Her comments will almost certainly be seized upon especially by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, for whom electoral reform is a major plank of his election campaign.