Today is the 90th anniversary of the first British general election in which women could vote. The sad truth is that, except for those who live in one of the few marginal constituencies, their votes are valueless and, of course, this is also true for men. Further, it will be true for 16-17 year-olds if they get the vote so long as we continue to use a 19th century voting system in the 21st century.

Britain needs a voting system in which all votes - by men and women of all ages wherevever they live - have a realistic chance of being effective. We need the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. This allows voters to choose, and express preferences between, candidates of the same and different parties so, if a voter's first preference is ineffective, a later preference may still be effective. Almost as a side effect, STV would provide a proportional and representative House of Commons, in which one party would be unable to rule on the basis of only 35% of the votes.