SIR – How many moneysucking MPs are needed in today’s House of Commons?

That is a good question, but at the heart of the shameful behaviour by the Liberal Democrats in the recent Commons debate was a vital principle, now ruptured, that parliamentary constituencies should be roughly the same size.

This has been a strut of our democracy since the Reform Act of 1832 when Commons reformers finally rid us of the old “rotten boroughs” seats with only a handful of electors.

If they had not been scrapped, there would surely have been riots across Hanoverian Britain.

Our Parliament works on the basis of electors sending representatives to Westminster and those representatives casting votes in their name.

Constituencies must be similar in size.

Anything else was and would be corrupt.

Anything else would place a greater value on the votes of those in smaller seats.

The essential idea in western democracy is one man, one vote.

If that is warped, trust in Parliament withers, agitators prosper and unrest is likely.

The Liberal Democrats, in a fit of pique, have broken this once sacred democratic rule and showed themselves up for what they are; just a bunch of opportunists with totally flexible moral principles.

MALCOLM DALEBO

Worcester