The expense and difficulty of voting at only one location in the county, together with the lack of a secret ballot contributed to the corruption and intimidation of voters, which was widespread in the unreformed British political system.

Some radicals, notably William Cobbett, claimed a "cover-up" within the government and viewed the verdict and Castlereagh's public funeral as a damning indictment of the elitism and privilege of the unreformed electoral system.

In practice the larger freeman boroughs were the most democratic part of the unreformed political system.

Extremist ideologies have prospered with the 'first past the post' system, and deeply unsettled our post-war economy - we are bottom of the European economic league in the post-war performance, and the only nation left with an unreformed electoral system.

The unreformed legal system was both slow and malign.

Mr. Yeltsin had urged Congress on Wednesday to direct help for the Soviet Union to individuals who are moving toward democracy, rather than to "an unreformed Communist system," as he put it.

The Whigs won a majority of 136 over the Tories, which was as near to a landslide as the unreformed electoral system could deliver.

Around the time of the Reform Act it was often held up by reformers as the epitome of what was wrong with the unreformed system.

But as the current presidential campaign began, the old unreformed and increasingly embarrassing system creaked back to life.

Despite remnants of the unreformed electoral system lingering into the mid-Victorian era, Cornwall developed a powerful Liberal tradition, built upon distinctive patterns of non-conformity; the Conservatives, split by dissension, saw their pre-reform ascendancy disappear.