Did Emily Davison die so we could watch 'EastEnders'?

Millions of homes in this country will have recently received a polling card. These have a variety of uses; you can put them by the phone and use them to scribble down numbers, you can fold them and stick them under wobbly tables or you can tear them up and use them for making joints. If you were really adventurous you could use yours to go and vote on Thursday, although, tragically, you would be in the minority.

Participation in British elections is bad and getting worse. At the last Euro elections the turnout was so low that, when asked for a recount, a returning officer said: "Alright then; OK I've finished!" Perhaps there should be more incentive to vote, a Readers Digest-type prize for the person who turns up with the lucky magic polling number.

Since the main political parties feel compelled to offer bribes at election time, I sometimes wonder why they don't just have done with it and stand outside the polling station shouting: "Vote Conservative and get £200 cash, a new DVD and a night out with Ffion."

The sad truth is that people don't value the fantastic prize that has already been won for them - the right to vote. It is only within the lifetime of many older voters that we have obtained universal suffrage in this country, and yet when our polling cards land on the doormat, we regard them with about as much respect as minicab cards and the leaflet from Speedy Pizzas.

Emily Davison lost her life jumping in front of the King's horse at the 1913 Derby so that we could live in a democracy. Maybe that wasn't her motive, maybe she just had two bob to win on the horse that was running second. At this very moment there are people in jail for the crime of advocating democracy. They dreamt of a society in which every citizen had the right to vote. As a member of Amnesty I have sent postcards to such political prisoners, though I decided it probably wouldn't be very tactful to tell them we'd achieved their vision of utopia over here, but found that people generally prefer to stay in and watch EastEnders on a Thursday.

There are all sorts of reasons why people feel that it's not worth bothering to struggle down to the polling station. One is that we have a voting system that disenfranchises millions of people. "What's the point in voting?" says Tony. "Whatever I do, that Ken Livingstone will get in."

Another is that most people still have very little power over their own lives; they feel excluded by society and so turn their back on the narrow choices offered to them. This is not a symptom of a failure of democracy per se, but of a democracy still in its infancy. And when our "democratic" society fails to live up to its promise, the reaction varies from apathy to anarchy.

The anti-capitalists who now regularly choose to celebrate May Day by getting smashed over the head with a police truncheon will cease to be a fringe novelty unless political power becomes genuinely devolved from the centre and people are routinely involved in decisions that affect their lives, nationally and locally and in their workplaces.

The alternative to real democracy is a society in which political opposition is regularly expressed with rioting, looting and throwing custard pies at Ann Widdecombe. It is not a pretty sight. And the custard pie doesn't help either. (Actually, it is probably rather cheap and sexist to make jokes about Ann Widdecombe's appearance. What we must ask ourselves is whether she is a lovely person on the inside. And the answer, unfortunately, is "No".)

Violence against individual politicians or world capitalism cannot be the way to construct a fairer and more democratic society. Tempting though it may be to vent our anger by hitting out at the symbols of the establishment, the only way forward must be to try to make the world a better place through the existing political system. We have sufficient freedom to go on and achieve real freedom, as Trotsky said to his friend with the ice-pick.

The establishment of the Scottish and Welsh assemblies and the chance to vote for a mayor of London are small steps in the right direction along this very long road, and predictably I will be voting for the party that has been extending democracy; for Frank Dobson and the Labour GLA candidates and not for the party of William Hague, who is treating his influential position with the irresponsible contempt of some two-bit Daily Mail Mugabe.

We all have a responsibility to take part in the political process in aconstructive way, and voting in the elections on Thursday - whoever you plump for - is only part of that. Democracy is a precious and fragile thing, and we cannot allow it to be threatened by anarchy or apathy in the UK (but just in case you disagree, Ann Widdecombe's book tour continues for another week or so, and custard pies are available in most good bakeries).