THE letter March 31 headed "We must protect democracy" presumed that the unelected House of Lords was some bastion of democracy for trying to deny North West voters the opportunity to vote by post.

The reality is that the Tory members of the House of Lords performed a massive U-turn from their previous policy.

When Margaret Thatcher was elected with a manifesto which included bringing her version of democracy to the trade unions, how did she do it?

She imposed postal votes on the unions for election of senior officials, industrial action ballots, closed shop ballots and political fund review ballots.

At a stroke her government reduced the turnout at all these ballots by over 50 per cent compared to the easy and most efficient way of balloting workers, which is to take the ballot box and ballot papers into the workplaces and let them get on with it.

It was guaranteed to achieve a 95 per cent return and a far more representative vote. Many of us have been cynical and cautious about postal voting ever since.

However, pilot schemes on postal voting at local elections at Chorley and elsewhere have produced astonishing returns of over 60 per cent.

The only time local government elections ever achieved anything like that previously was when voters used the local election to protest against Margaret Thatcher's government for introducing the "poll tax!"

It is the height of arrogance for Liberal Democrat and Tory Lords to dismiss these pilots with wild allegations of fraud throughout the North West.

It is also ludicrous for the UK's largest, most expensive, unelected quango to ignore the democratic wishes of the people who pay for their expenses and their ermine and robes uniform of the House of Lords.

Coun DON RISHTON, Wensley Fold Ward (Labour), Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.