Dear Sir,

I recently read that 70 per cent of Italians have voted by referendum in favour of reducing the number of MPs from 634 to 400 and to reduce the size of the Senate, too.

Italy has a population of 6.5 million, so before the reduction in Members of Parliament, there was one MP for every 10,250 Italians.

After the reduction, there will be 16,250 Italians per MP.

Bermuda has a population of 62,220 and 36 MPs. That means each Member of Parliament has 1,728 constituents.

If we were to reduce the number of MPs to the original Italian ratio, Bermuda would need only six MPs. Now that may be a bit drastic, so let’s start by going for half the existing number — still three times more than the bloated Italian version.

Not only would 18 MPs cost half what they do now, but they would probably spend half the time over needless arguments.

Perhaps one of the parties could add this to their manifesto.

MARTIN WILLIAMSON

Paget