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THAT got your attention, didn’t it?

But despite my commitment to keeping First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) for elections to the House of Commons, I should perhaps flesh out my views, which are just a tad more sophisticated (“tad”, in this contest, meaning “infinitesimal” or “an amount that is negligible”) than might have been deduced from previous postings on the subject.

AV is a good system for filling a single position. If Britain had an elected president, for example, he or she would probably be elected by AV, or at least in a run-off ballot. That would make sense.

Similarly, if a local party is choosing a parliamentary candidate, AV is the best system to secure the maximum amount of support for the victorious candidate from party members. And, yes, when electing the leader of a party, AV’s the system to use.

But when you’re electing 650 people from across the country, you’re not just electing 650 individual MPs – you’re electing a government.

Now, of course I recognise the constitutional reality of what happens on polling day: we’re electing a legislature, not an executive. But if we’re honest, we’ll admit that when your average voter wakes up on the Friday after polling day, he doesn’t rush to the TV to ask: “Who won in my own seat?” He wants to know who is Prime Minister and who will be forming the new government. Whether we like it or not, the general public believe that the general election is there to elect a Prime Minister, not your own MP. That’s why we had the televised leaders’ debate (an innovation I opposed, incidentally) – because most people saw May 2010 as a contest among three men to become (or remain) Prime Minister.

And that’s why FPTP remains the best system for the Commons and AV is the better system for electing party leaders. Horses for courses, see?

And one day I’m sure someone will come up with a good example of an election that is best fought using the Single Transferable Vote. Probably. Maybe.