There can be no one who voted or campaigned for the Alternative Vote who believed it to be anything other than a first step towards full reform of the electoral system. Initially, Nick Clegg's petulant description of it as a “miserable little compromise” seemed an example of the perfect being permitted to become the enemy of the possible. However, it now seems that the pursuit of incremental change may have turned out to be a mistake.

Today, I went to a polling station to do something which I hope never to do again. I voted in a general election conducted under the first-past-the-post system.