Nothing incites such turnarounds better than good, honest abuse of the power of celebrity; and when it comes to celebrity, no one does it better than the Sun. In an attempt to show that “politics CAN be cool�, the Sun is calling on a host of stars to tell the kids to get out and vote on May 5th to prevent the proud tradition of British democracy sinking further into the quagmire.

They even portrayed Joss Stone as a modern-day Lord Kitchener, thus introducing a subtle link between war and voting that introduces the most interesting facet of this election: how to punish Blair without letting in the Tories?

This question has turned tactical voting into a sophisticated science and given rise to an unprecedented level of disillusionment, with voters increasingly abandoning the whole system for want of someone worthy of their trust.

Despite all the hyperbole, however, and the vast amount of column inches devoted every day to tales of apathy and negative voting, no one seems to be making much noise about the root cause of both of these problems.

This is not surprising, for the root cause is the voting system - its inherent inequities, its blatant bias and its gross inappropriateness for contemporary Britain.

First-past-the-post is a relic of a bygone age, of a two-party political system which has been slowly dying out for the past fifty years. As Robin Cook said recently, in the current political climate, first-past-the-post "creaks and groans and delivers eccentric results".

Mention proportional representation to people, however, and they will generally hit you with tales of Hitler, scenes of mirth in the House of Commons, or their fists. That's if they don’t fall asleep first.

Ask any dissenters why they feel the need to do this and you will generally get one of two responses. The first group will come over all Charles Kennedy during a manifesto launch: stuttering, stumbling and mumbling something about having had a late night. The second group will give the Tony Blair response: disdainful laughter. This might well be coupled with some mythical arguments about loss of constituency link, “weak� government or giving power to Fascist thugs like the BNP.

All of which, of course, are wrong, and have been thoroughly debunked plenty of times before. The problem for now is simply one of perception – a perception that badly needs changing if Britain wants to continue to claim to be a free and fair democratic country.

With talking about proportional representation being about as cool as train spotting, even the Lib Dems, so long reform’s only mouthpiece, have been resisting the urge to mention it recently. You can hardly blame them – it is as useful for sustaining their momentum as Lembit Opik’s crazy tales of impending Armageddon.

PR may or may not be able to stop an asteroid thudding into our planet, but it can combat a host of other more immediate problems, including apathy, disillusionment, tactical voting, the unaccountability of government, negative campaigning and the gearing of policies towards the all-important swing voters in marginal constituencies.

If votes were made to actually count, there would be no need for tactical voting or negative campaigning, as you would be voting for whom you actually supported and not against whomever you most disliked.

The amount of people bothering to make the trip to the polling station is always higher in marginal seats, simply because people feel that they can make a difference. If everyone felt that their vote was counting towards something, turnout would soar.

As it stands, however, the system is so biased that the government is decided as much by geography and incumbency as by actual votes cast. In 2001, it took an average of 26,000 votes to elect a Labour MP, 50,300 to elect a Conservative and 92,600 to elect a Lib Dem. Theoretically, this time round, Labour could finish third on the popular vote and still maintain a parliamentary majority.

This skewed power of first-past-the-post doesn’t make governments "strong" so much as unaccountable. If the government was more representative of the public’s opinions, a million people couldn’t march through the capital to protest against it, and be so ostensibly ignored.

The people in charge should be there to represent the views of the populace, not the strategies of the psephologists: it’s hardly surprising that only one in five voters reckon there’s a great deal of difference between the two main parties, when they are both chasing the same key voters. As comedian and political activist Mark Thomas put it: "Parliament has become the battle of managers rather than a powerhouse for popular change. In short it is barely a democracy."

A change in the voting system is not a silver bullet for all the ills of government; it’ll take more than PR to keep Prescott out of the headlines. But it is the change that will make the biggest single difference, provided of course, that people are willing to give it the time of day.

The aftermath of the coming election could present the best opportunity in a century to reform the anachronistic and undemocratic first-past-the-post. Like Political Betting’s Mike Smithson says, "It is an ideal time to do something because it is real possibility, if not a probability, that Labour could retain power with the lowest proportion of the popular vote ever." If this were to happen, it would seriously question the government’s legitimacy and bring the need for reform into the public sphere.

Just as smoking is now less associated with Hollywood icons and more with smelling like a Frenchman, maybe one day soon talk of PR will distance itself from accusations of anorakism and be seen for what it is - the promotion of real democracy in modern, pluralist Britain.

Join the party: sign up for a change at www.makemyvotecount.org.uk