There were several reasons why I was happy to leave Britain a couple of years ago, but one of them was certainly political discontent.

That political discontent is evidently shared by most British citizens, as a quick glance at the newspapers, or a solitary pint in the pub with half an ear for the conversations unfolding around you will confirm. Politicians are almost uniformly held in contempt. The 2010 election was, following the fraudulent war in Iraq and the global financial crisis, a critically important one. Yet some 35 per cent of the electorate couldn’t be bothered to vote. Meanwhile, many millions of those who could be bothered to vote … had their votes pulped.

That always struck me as a strange situation, and an unhealthy one. Britain is a mature, functioning democracy; and most British politicians, so far as I can see, are hard-working and trustworthy. (Yes, I recall the expenses ‘scandal’. Silly behaviour for politicians, but I suspect the rest of the country’s citizens are as culpable, and on a world scale of political corruption it barely registers.)

Britain’s politicians are indeed often parochial and small-minded – but no more so than many of Australia’s politicians, as I learned when I listened to what passed for the climate-change ‘debate’ from my radio set in Adelaide. They are sometimes pompous and arrogant – but no more so than most politicians of the French right, as I can hear when I listen to my radio set in Prades Le Lez. They are sometimes doctrinaire and locked in the thinking of the past – but no more so than most politicians of the French left. They can champion national interests over-stridently – but no more so than many of their American counterparts.

So why the disenchantment? Why my disenchantment?

Simple. I’ve voted in nine general elections, and my vote has been torn up and thrown away every time. If this seem strange to non-Britons, let me explain.

The only votes which matter in Britain are those cast for the winning candidate in each constituency. The rest are totalled, then bundled up in an enormous dustbin bag and carted off for recycling. So far as I recall, I never voted for the winning candidate in any constituency in which I was living. I never helped put even a thread of a grey suit or a white blouse into the Houses of Parliament. My country wasn’t interested in my vote, since I voted in a different manner to the majority of my immediate neighbours. I never felt parliament represented me. I never felt I had a stake in it.

It’s not quite as bad as Burma or North Korea, of course. I can vote. I can vote for whoever I want. My vote is counted, even if it is then thrown away.

It is a democratic system of sorts -- but a blunt, crude and outmoded system which disenfranchises millions of voters and leaves them feeling cheated. The voting system should have been changed decades ago. The arguments against doing so are risibly poor.

There is, in fact, no satisfactory theoretical argument against the principle of fair votes.

The present system is unfair. Many things in life are unfair – but this shouldn’t be one of them. Voting only works for voters if it is fair and seen to be fair. That is the basic premise of democracy.

Those who claim that the UK would quickly become ‘ungovernable’ if the voting system is changed fail to realise that whatever the electoral system, Britain will always proceed politically in a ‘British’ manner. In other words, conservatively, unimaginatively and stodgily -- but also respectfully, legally and consensually.

It will, in other words, always have far more in common with German or Scandinavian politics than it will with Italian or Israeli politics. Neither Germany nor Sweden is ‘ungovernable’. My vote would count if I was a German or a Swedish voter, even if I didn’t vote with the majority in a constituency. A party’s representation in both country’s parliaments mirrors its share of the popular vote.

Those who claim that it would give ‘extremists’ a political voice which they don’t necessarily have at present are correct. This is a very good thing. Democracies need to argue down extremist thinking, and parliament is the ideal place to argue it down. Political exclusion is far more dangerous – since extremists may swiftly feel they need to move outside the law and use violence to get their point across. The best way to defuse terrorism is to give those who feel they have no alternative but to resort to terrorist tactics a political voice.

At last, in May 2011: a glimmer of hope. Mathematical happenstance at the last election has meant that one of the two major parties has been forced into conceding a referendum on Britain’s voting system.

Unfortunately true proportional representation is not on offer; merely a second-rate substitute called the ‘Alternative Vote’. For some reason, this system is obsessively predicated on a 50% cut-off point among those votes cast. In other words, if I lived in a constituency in which the winning candidate obtained over 50% of the votes when first counted, then my vote will still be thrown away.

Without 50% of the vote going to any one candidate, the second and sometimes third preferences of voters are taken into account in an elaborate counting quadrille.

It all seems thoroughly unsatisfactory – except in so far as it marks an advance on the present, wholly unsatisfactory system. For that reason, I fervently hope the referendum on May 5th 2011 receives the support of the politician-loathing British, and that it is quickly followed by further adjustments to the voting system. I hope that, eventually, every vote cast really does count – and the British then begin to loathe their politicians a little less.