Your correspondents (Letters, 1 March and 3 March) have missed the point in discussing “semicircular layouts” for parliamentary debating chambers. The benefit of semicircular, or even circular, layouts for such venues, is not that they “get rid of confrontational bear pits”, but that they recognise there are more than two sides to almost any debate, thus discouraging simplistic left-right political dichotomy.
Indigenous communities have understood this for centuries with their traditional decision-making circles. But for modern examples, Google “Nunavut legislature image” to see the recently built Nunavut legislative assembly hall in Iqaluit in northern Canada, where respectful political debate rather than purely oppositional decision-making is encouraged. Or consider Aboriginal “yarning circles” in Australia. Then, of course, there’s the circular United Nations security council chamber layout.
Philip C Stenning
Eccleshall, Staffordshire
• Confrontation is not the essence of debate, but the essence of point-scoring, which is what we see all too often. Decision-making needs to be devolved to the lowest practical level of politics, with matters that cannot be resolved moving up through the tiers of decision-making. Our two-party system gives a false picture of the range of views that exist in society.
Robin Gardner
Nottingham
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