Voters need a real link with their politicians, and the chance to hold them properly to account. Yet as the expenses crisis has so starkly illustrated in many seats you would need a miracle to get rid of many incumbents.

Change – no chance.

In safe seats odds are firmly stacked against any disgruntled voters looking for change with a candidate in a distant second or third place. The situation is so bad in Britain that on average seats last changed hands between parties in the 1960s, with some party’s super safe seats having remained firmly in one party control to a time before the Great Reform Act of 1832.

These are the 21st Century's rotten boroughs.

A Constituency without links

Safe seats have punished voters. But it's also served to deny MPs a real mandate for government. The low bar set by our winner takes all contests has disconnected many MPs from their constituents, meaning that some aren’t even obliged to campaign to ensure their re-election.

And these seats are still 'safe' when not a single current MP can boast of support from a majority of their voters.

It is a sad reflection of our democracy that Party’s still have it in their power to gift seats to their loyalists or young up-and-comers. Many MPs are still gifted what amounts to a  jobs for life. The system has left many dangerously detached fromt their electorate. We have politicians with simply no reason to campaign and with it no incentive to engage with their voters.

Restoring the link

We need a new system that can really bring our politicians down to earth and focused on the job in hand. A system that oblige politicians to campaign for every vote and that makes the residents of our safe seats less safe. The Alternative Vote is small but necessary step to rebuilding trust in politics