When Sal Brinton and I did the Hungry for Democracy fast last week, we did it to raise awareness of why we need a different voting system for Westminster so that we can get the Parliament we ask for.

Also in our minds was the fact that proportional voting systems give much more potential for a more diverse Parliament. An article on the Electoral Reform Society’s blog this week shows how our First Past the Post system is a barrier to gender equality. Basically, the safest seats are mostly held by men.

When each constituency has just one seat, only one MP can be elected to represent that area. This in itself quells diversity and competition. Secondly, the majority of seats rarely change hands between different parties. So once an MP is elected to represent a ‘safe seat’ there is little chance of them losing a subsequent election. Combined with the fact that incumbent MPs are very rarely deselected, it means ‘safe seat’ MPs have unrivalled job security. And, as the new research shows, the longer an MP has held their seat, the more likely they are to be men. This represents a constant drag on women’s representation – unless there are real structural changes. A proportional voting system with multi-member seats would end seat blocking by adding much-needed competition: constituencies would be represented by multiple MPs, meaning no one could secure a monopoly on local representation

Sal talks about how, at current rates of progress, her baby granddaughters, two this Summer, will be in their ninth decade before gender equality is achieved.

It’s not a magic bullet for this. In Scotland, we are far from equal, though progress has been made since STV was introduced for Council elections. I went through lists of candidates to work out the gender balance of those standing last year and found the process profoundly depressing. In Dundee there were some wards where there were no female candidates at all. That Council remains one of the least diverse in the country. However, removing the safe seats means that you have a quicker route to improving diversity.

It is hardly surprising that our democracy is in the terrible state that it is in when it doesn’t deliver the Parliament people ask for and that Parliament doesn’t reflect the diversity of the population.

People say we shouldn’t talk about reforming the voting system because it bores people. We need to get better at telling them how much better and fairer our society could be with a fairer voting system.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings