TWO weeks and counting – that’s when we change democracy as we know it. Or leave everything in the unsatisfactory mess we have now.

Please do not suppose from anything contained in the previous paragraph that I have strong feelings about whether or not we should alter our voting system. I still haven’t the fuzziest and politicians are not exactly helping.

So should we keep the first-past-the-post system (FPTP) or choose the Alternative Vote (AV) in which voters rank some or all candidates in order of preference?

AV is slightly more complicated than that, but the will to live begins to drain away once the details are considered, what with first-preference votes and eliminated candidates, and survivors sharing the votes previously allocated to candidates who have been voted out. Or something.

So a yes vote might usher in new complications. Set against that is the general nastiness of the tone adopted by the no lobby, with their garish posters saying AV puts the NHS at risk and the like.

One way to approach this matter is to listen to the politicians make their arguments, which is almost as much fun as cutting off your own toes with a rusty saw.

I started out by thinking that it might be best to take the opposite view of politicians I dislike. But don’t go thinking that makes things easy. David Cameron is my least favourite horribly nonchalant old Etonian of the moment and he is an ardent no-man. So that’s that – I shall vote yes just to spite Call Me Dave.

Ah yes, I hear myself cry – for what is a column but muttering out loud in the company of strangers? – but Nick Clegg favours AV and he’s almost even more irksome than his coalition buddy. So should I vote ‘no’ to land one on Clegg?

This decision is not getting any simpler.

There was a strange encounter in the news the other day. David Cameron shared a no-platform with Dr John Reid, the former Labour attack dog, who had for the day been let out of his retirement kennel – or, should you prefer a more technical description, the House of Lords.

Dr Reid snarled that AV was “not British”, while Mr Cameron, pinking slightly, said that AV would lead to more coalitions. Isn’t it wonderful the way an expensive education can give you the confidence to shamelessly wing it.

So using the antipathy method, that’s two good reasons for voting yes. Dr No, as he has been now nicknamed, was annoying when, as Home Secretary, he thunderously twittered on about things being “not fit for purpose”. And he is still irksome now. As for his unlikely no-no companion, further reasons should be unnecessary in this vicinity.

It occurs to me that the problem with this whole debate is that it has been conducted by politicians. As is their wont, our Parliamentary friends have called on all their usual confrontational dark arts. This basically boils down to saying that the other lot are vagabonds and liars.

So an important decision we have to make is being argued out in front of us by politicians trying to out-do, out-shout and out-insult each other. Edifying is not the word you are looking for.

So is it FPTP or AV? To borrow from Mr Harry Hill, now I like FPTP and I like AV. So which one is best? There’s only one way to find out: FIGHT! Only they’ve been doing that for weeks already.

Does anyone else fear this whole business might just put even more people off politics?

• SIMON Hoggart, in The Guardian, tells an amusing tale about York-born actress Judi Dench. I hope he won’t mind me passing it on. It is, he says, a true story.

Judi’s eyesight is beginning to fail and recently she accidentally stepped off a pavement in London, straight in front of a taxi, whose driver slammed on the brakes, leaned out of the window and shouted, “Bitch!” The great woman of the stage stood her ground, raised herself high, and responded: “That’s Dame Bitch to you.”

Well, that certainly has a pleasing theatrical ring to it.