Good old France. On the eve of St George’s Day and Shakespeare’s birthday, the old rival embarrassingly shook us out of any remaining complacency about this sceptred fortress of democracy. Never mind the social problems and unemployment: France has reminded Britain how to do politics properly.

Their two top candidates for the presidency offered a real sharp flavourful choice of ideologies — not the muddy old Brown Windsor soup of disingenuous platitudes in which we gloomily wade towards the new Labour leadership and the misty Cameroon highlands.

But more importantly (though perhaps as a result of this garlicky tang of difference) a stunning proportion of French voters turned out: just under 85 per cent. Some even queued outside polling stations for an hour because a joker put glue in the keyholes. In the May final it could go even higher. And with that high turnout came a higher concentration of sense and sanity: Jean-Marie Le Pen got far less of the total than he expected, and the tedious centrist Bayrou faded.

Compare this 85 per cent energy with our own dismal electorate. Our postwar record was set in 1950, when 83.9 per cent voted (nearly as many turned out again a year later). After that, percentage turnouts settled back to the mid70s, peaking in 1979 at 76 per cent as the nation became exasperated by power cuts and endless strikes, and gave us Mrs Thatcher instead. The Labour landslide of 1997 was created by only 71.5 per cent — far less than the Sarkozy-Royal turnout — and in the last two general elections our governing party has been chosen by a disgraceful 59.4 and 61.5 per cent. At this rate, soon there will be only half of us bothering, which is already the case in the devolved elections in Wales and Scotland.

So that’s our proud ancient democracy. A quarter of voters ignore all coverage of elections, nearly half regularly switch channels to avoid it; when polled they say they don’t like politicians and expect them to tell lies. Well, probably the French feel a bit the same; but despite that they got up and voted. It’s a start.

Which brings me, oddly, to David Cameron’s speech yesterday calling for a “revolution in responsibility”. For one of the sternest responsibilities in a democracy is to vote, surely? And nearly half of us just don’t see it. But then, as Mr Cameron said, there’s a lot we have started to shed responsibility for — public manners, civic pride, carrying a job through and taking the rap if we foul up. And the way has been led by a governmental and official culture of denying guilt and refusing ever to resign, and a mania for removing responsibility from individuals by hedging them in with restrictive rules. Head teachers, police, NHS staff, museum curators, officials of all sorts are made to spend far too much time in the tedious tasks of “accountability” (meaning form-filling and pretending to have hit imaginary “targets”).

Individuals, meanwhile, fear to tackle nuisances in case they themselves are jumped on by the law. Many years ago I mumsily confiscated a crisp packet of glue from a child of about 10 who was sniffing it on the staircase of an Underground station. I told him it was bad for him, asked if he was OK and offered to buy him a cold drink; he moved on, sulkily. I doubt I’d do it now: I’d be wondering whether he had a human rights case against me for removing his property, or even a molestation complaint.

New “crimes” — such as dissing the Welsh, or reading out the names of the Iraqi dead by the Cenotaph — proliferate, and in parallel there is a rise in general stroppiness and low-level bad behaviour. We cease to see anything as wrong unless there is both an actual law against it and an enforcer close at hand. It’s the Government’s responsibility, innit? So, instead of refraining from taking our litter home because the picnic site is beautiful and shared, we look around to see if there’s a warden, and if not, dump it. Well, all right, I don’t and maybe you don’t either — but plenty do. Look down our lane any summer evening.

Small personal incivilities abound, and weirdly each one is a reflection of the way our leaders behave. For every gang of jeering yobs on the street there is an Alastair Campbell saying “F*** Gilligan” and a Blair bragging of a “big clunking fist”. For every creep who won’t turn off his music in a railway carriage there is a plan, backed by government, to increase flights and create noisy new stacks over hundreds of thousands of peaceful homes without fair consultation.

The “up yours” society is building fast, fed by a sense of sullen helplessness. Mr Cameron may not have given us much policy detail yet but his instinct is good. And his manners, so far, are rather better than those of the Home Office Minister Tony McNulty, who coined the original “hug-a-hoodie” sneer after a reasonable and humane reflection on youth crime by Mr Cameron, and then dragged it out again yesterday with a “Na-na-na-naaa-naaa!” playground tone he should have outgrown in 1968.

And have I strayed far from the French election? Not really. A high electoral turnout would indicate that more of us accept that running Britain is a big team effort, and politicians are chosen servants, not inevitable masters. Mr Cameron has yet to prove himself on detail, practicality, truthfulness in action, and explicit willingness to roll back state control. But it could be that he appeals to the gloomy four in ten who have given up voting. Mr Brown will have to do a lot of libertarian things, fast and positively and in defiance of his predecessor, if he is to match that appeal.

Times Recommends

• Ted Hughes was a prophet of climate change
• Health & safety can damage your reasoning
• It’s Big Brother’s stupidity that scares me