What we need is a system that keeps the link between candidate and constituency while providing a fairer link between the number of votes received nationally and the seats gained in the Commons. If we only had party lists it would weed out the independent-minded MPs and prevent people voting in favour of good local MPs irrespective of party or voting against poor ones (Ann Keen-Expenses comes to mind).
Some form of top-up seats, on either a regional (to keep some sort of link between MP and constituency) or on a national basis, so that parties who cleared a threshold of, say, 5% nationally or within a region, but failed to gain a comparable proportion of seats, might work - although even then the likes of Mebyon Kernow, with a localised vote that would never clear a 5% national or even regional hurdle, would have grounds for complaint. It still means that the electorate could not readily eject someone holding one of these top-up seats, as it would be down to the party concerned who was nominated for them. |