The Government published today the question to be asked in the AV referendum on 5 May 2011.

The full text of the question is: "Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the 'alternative vote' system instead of the current 'first past the post' system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?"

Under the alternative vote (AV) system, voters rank candidates in their constituency in order of preference.

There is no doubt that AV is better than first past the post. Two key advantages of AV is that each MP would be elected by at least half the votes and voters would no longer have to vote tactically to make their votes count instead of voting as they really feel.