So compulsory voting is on Labour’s agenda for the first time, placed there yesterday in a speech by Geoff Hoon, the Leader of the Commons. He may have insisted that this was “entirely a personal perspective” but the Leader of the Commons cannot speak entirely personally on such a subject. He called for a debate; let us have one.

And let us first note that there is a certain arrogance in a minister for a government which rushed the introduction of an unsafe postal voting system, introduced various incomprehensible forms of proportional representation, and has even left the House of Lords itself half-reformed, proposing now to force participation in an imperfect and unrepresentative system. Mr Hoon blamed voter cynicism and, ridiculously, the Daily Mail for low turnout. He also identified a sense of alienation from the political process, rather than apathy; a feeling of disengagement more likely to be found in areas of high deprivation. No doubt some people behind the scenes in the Labour Party, if not Mr Hoon himself, will have calculated some electoral advantage to themselves in forcing more impoverished voters to the ballot box.

A higher turnout, said Mr Hoon, would ensure a representative, healthy and vibrant democracy; compulsory voting would bring those who feel alienated into the political process, resurrect the sense that we can all work together, and even show that there is such a thing as “society”. Not if achieved by force, it won’t. What is to stop those compelled to turn up at the polling station grumpily spoiling their ballots? Compulsory voting is an oversimplistic solution to a complex situation which may not even be a problem. True, turnout fell every year since the war until 2001, and increased only marginally to 61 per cent this year because of postal voting. But were Britain’s main political parties to be arguing over something greater than 3 per cent of a public spending total of £634 billion and minor differences in most other areas of policy, voter participation would in all prob-ability increase of its own accord.

Inspiration, not compulsion, is the solution. If people do not care much for the wares on offer in Westminster or Brussels; if they fail to see how their vote makes a difference; if they think all politicians sound the same and promise the same goodies, they turn away from the ballot box.

Some of the other proposals that Mr Hoon raises without actually endorsing them — putting voting booths in railway stations or supermarkets, moving the polling day to a weekend, online or text message voting — merit further consideration. But they all suffer from the same defect: that each is designed to maximise the authority of the existing system. Ministers should also examine ways to enable citizens actually to change that system; by including on a ballot paper, for instance, an option to reject all the candidates. Were a predetermined percentage of voters to tick that box, the poll would be void and have to be run again. Now that really would enable a voter to make his mark. What do you think, Mr Hoon?