When I talk to people about the need to tackle global warming, a great many still say that it is going to be very difficult to reduce our carbon footprint. In the eyes of many, one of the easiest wins in reducing emissions is to convert to electric vehicles. Given that private cars account for at least 20% of our total energy footprint, IF they were all electric, and IF the electricity all came from renewable sources, clearly there is a big prize here.

But like many, I have to say I have been sceptical that electric cars will ever be an attractive alternative.  There is a wonderful website I know called “ugly electric cars” which demonstrates clearly the problem.

However, my attention was caught by a tweet I picked up a month or two back with a link to Robert Llewellyn (Crichton in Red Dwarf) and his Carpool series of Internet TV interviews. He had been given a new fully electric Mitsubishi i-MiEV to test and I was immediately struck by how practical a car this was. And by its low running cost - roughly £1 per 100 miles, which was also its approximate range. Now for me, most of my car journeys are short, around Hertfordshire, so this could be a very viable option. He now has a series of internet TV videos called Gearless which will track his experience with the i-MiEV.

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It is a bit late in the day, but nevertheless we probably should welcome Labour’s sudden desire to hold a vote on replacing the hopelessly outdated First Past the Post (FPTP) system of elections.

BUT!!!!

What is needed is a two stage process. First, by all means let’s have a vote to agree that we want to replace FPTP - if this can be done straight away then at least we have started in the right direction. But then we need to ASK THE PEOPLE what they consider a more appropriate replacement.So far in the UK there has been precious little debate on this except amongst those of us who are really passionate for the need for change, and most people have no idea of the merits of the various systems.

Personally, I would prefer us to slim down parliament, establish larger constituencies which would allow us to use Single Transferable Vote (STV), by far the fairest form of PR which preserves individual votes for individual candidates, and a constituency link - although it would be a much larger constituency.

This would then require a major reform of the system of local government - which we need anyway, so that local government has the power to make a difference, and the role of the MP as a local problem fixer, rather than a national legislator, could be reduced.

Local elections definitely need to be via STV and this is now used for local elections in Scotland. This change could be brought in immediately as the multi-member ward system we have currently lends itself to this already. And if we did this, we could end the quite appalling imbalance of representation at local level whereby  we have 55  Tory county councillors out of 77 in Hertfordshire, versus 17 LibDems and 3 Labour, despite the proportion of votes being 46%:27%:14%.

Major changes like these should be brought in through a process of public consultation and hopefully cooperation between the parties.

So yes we need to agree to scrap FPTP, but we then need to hold an electoral conference (as we have been proposing) in order to come up with the better solution. What Brown is proposing is just a desperate gesture.

For more on electoral reform see  http://www.voteforachange.co.uk/