Jim owns quite a pleasant, but not opulent, detached house near Chichester. He and his late wife bought it many years ago for £15,000. They bought, maintained and improved it out of taxed income and it is now worth about £400,000. Now in his seventies, Jim is worried about the amount of inheritance tax his daughter will have to pay on his death. He has always voted Labour or Liberal Democrat in the past but he has decided that, if the Conservative Party adopts John Redwood's proposal to abolish inheritance tax, he will vote Conservative next time.

However, his change of vote will not make the slightest difference to the election result either locally or nationally. Chichester is already a safe Conservative seat so, even if the party won over all the Labour voters there, it would not lead to a Conservative gain.

Mary has always voted Conservative in the past, mainly because she thought they could manage the economy better than any other party, but she has been very impressed by Gordon Brown’s record as Chancellor and she thinks he has made a good start as Prime Minister, so she is thinking of voting Labour next time.

However, she lives in Sedgefield, so her change of vote will not make the slightest difference to the election result either locally or nationally. Sedgefield is already a safe Labour seat so, even if the party won over all the Conservative voters there, it would not lead to a Labour gain.

Every general election is decided by a small number of voters in marginal constituencies. Most of us live in safe constituencies, where our votes have no effect and this is not democratic. The solution is to abolish safe constituencies by changing the voting system so every vote can count and is of equal value in every part of the country.

The Single Transferable Vote voting system would not only solve that problem but would also solve and ease many more.