Leaving aside the issue of whether or not Labour need a crisis meeting to assess the impact of losing that vital plank of their recent electoral support – the masses of Green supporting, anti-Tory tactical voters – the column, in my mind at least, serves best to highlight the mess we find ourselves in when we try to graft environmental, or any other "issue-based", politics onto Britain's current, 19th century designed, democracy. To put this another way, how can we talk green if all we can say is "red", "yellow" or "blue"?

If I can adopt a sultry mid-Atlantic drawl for a brief moment, "hear is the science bit":

 The FPTP electoral system encourages mass political parties to draw a line in the sand, and then stand on either side of it throwing stones at each other. Negative campaigning is promoted by the need for parties to differentiate themselves to swing voters, and by the politician's knowledge that they'll never find themselves having to share an office with the opponents they so readily criticise. They say people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, well neither should people on small islands surrounded by rising seas.

 The battle for the "median voter" leads to tokenism in important issues du jour, as the parties seek to sway undecided voters with grand rhetoric. Hence the Conservative's current fascination with the environment. It’s the political equivalent of a nose job and a tummy tuck. It also gets in the way of real, long-term, constructive engagement with the problems at hand. This is particularly important in relation to the environment; if it's not quite fiddling while Rome burns it's at least squabbling while Norfolk drowns.

 PR or preferential systems on the other hand have several advantages for fostering real issue-based political discussion. They would give a real, proportional, measure of the true support for environmental politics – and other issue-areas – without the need for messy tactical or expressive voting. They would also foster a more consensual, collegiate (and, yes, coalition based) politics where our politicians would have to do all the things they hate most, like sit in a semi-circle, and occasionally agree with each other. Under PR they might even be able to bring in some meaningful green legislation that would force the public to face up to what is one of hardest political pills they've had to swallow for a generation or more.

Under a proportional or preferential system, therefore, Cameron would need more than a new fuzzy logo and a husky to hug in order to turn the Tory ship around and head for Number 10, and if there was a pro-environment swing within the electorate (such as it appears there was in Kentish Town) this would feed through directly into the legislative arena. Meanwhile we could have real, engaging and constructive debate on a whole range of clearly defined issues, with more accurate expressions of public opinion, and more democratic legitimacy with which to face down the toughest political issues. And we might just end up saving the world, or at least Norfolk, while we're at it.