Not many people seem to realise that the UK also has an electoral college system. It's called the House of Commons. The stooge that you vote for or against in your own constituency is really only there to vote for the party leader who is nominated for Prime Minister when the new parliament is convened. Once that process is over, he/she is just lobby fodder whos presence in Parliament is only required when there is a vote on parliamentary motions decided by the party leader, and they really might as well just go away for four years.

A representative of MORI polls came out with a magnificent Freudian slip the other morning on BBC TV news: "President Blair and Tony Bush". The interviewer either didn't notice it or was remarkably self-controlled.

The system which we have in Ireland is broadly similar, but at least the multi-seat proportional representation system gives us the illusion of choice (i.e. which stooge gets to vote for the party's candidate for Prime Minister).