For many individuals voting is their primary and perhaps single conscious political act over the four-five year electoral cycle. Thus, the significance of the electoral system extends beyond determining the composition of a new government; it sends out crucial signals on the values represented within the political system.

  Elections as the most conspicuous means by which the government is held accountable must be seen to embody elementary principles of fairness and reliability. Essentially, an electoral system must create a solid, trustworthy base for a new government to legitimise itself upon.

  Conversely, the long-standing Westminster FPTP system perpetuates the symptoms of cynicism and distrust that currently feed into our wider political malaise.

  The simple disproportionate ratio of votes to seats has been well documented, simply to say that as concerns Labour we achieved our highest ever proportion of the vote in the 1951 election (49 per cent)- only to then end up with less seats than the Conservatives.

   Yet the perverse and malicious effects of PR run deeper than this. Under FPTP what matters are the swing seats that make and break majorities. This electoral curiosity has consistently distorted the priorities of parties by holding them in thrall to the small, unrepresentative minorities within these. In Labour's case this has created an unwillingess to set out the honest case for wealth redistribution and poverty eradication for fear of upsetting these very minorities. The result two-fold - we have not been radical enough in winning the argument on inequality, and at the same time where gains have been made they have too often been silent gains.

  The disproportionate focus on swing voters can leave some feeling virtually disenfranchised and even alienated- one facet of FPTPs contribution to the turnout problem. The other is the opinion expressed by most first-time voters to me; that of the apparent irrelevance of their vote in the face of entrenched majorities.Imagine the liberating and emancipatory effect of being able with PR to tell all these individuals that abstention or wasted votes are things of the past.

   We are often told that voters are turned off by the less clear-cut ideological distinctions between the main parties, however, surely this process has been reciprocal; parties didn't just become less ideological, so did voters. Yet left and right and core views on the role of the state do still matter; go anywhere in the world and you soon see the basic outlines of the left:right dichotomy. If parties need to reaffirm some core principles from time to time; i'm thinking equality (the defining value of social democracy) in Labour's case, then perhaps so too do some voters. FPTP works against this though by encouraging cynical, short-term tactical voting rather than long-term commitment on the basis of core principles. Perhaps another factor in declining party membership.

  The final qualm with FPTP is the dangerous power it could give to a future Conservative government. This power is particularly potent under Britain's unwritten constitution, with no long-term public or social interest constitutionally enshrined, unlike in Germany for instance. Only one thing is necessary to marshal the deep powers of the unitary British state: a simple majority in the House of Commons. A future Conservative government with a majority could easily trim and trim and trim away at both the silent and explicit good Labour has done. The Conservatives are surely aware of this hence the reason that even in the bizarre situation of needing to be 10 per cent ahead to win- to Labour's 1 per cent- they refuse to broker any discussion on PR.

  For Labour it is surely far better to risk sharing power with the Liberals than to lose it to a ruthless, power hungry Conservative majority. Perhaps if we had shared power in the Thatcher era we would not have gone from being one of the more equal European countries to having the highest level of child poverty. Perhaps we could have reached a compromise on trade unions, enshrining their rights as social partners and thus avoiding both bastardised corporatism and Thatcherite emasculation. Perhaps we could have sustained reasonable public services and not failed both young and old generations with below-par health and education systems.

  At the centre of all this is my conviction that we are at heart not a Conservative country; Labour has made important strides in shifting Britain back to a more decent and fair consensus. One too valuable, particularly for the most vulnerable, to be sacrificed upon the vagaries of the electoral system.