91Èȱ¬

Ed Miliband has finally decided to get married to his long-standing partner, but the future of British politics may depend on the Labour leader showing a lot more personal commitment in a very different, but equally symbolic way.

A senior member of the No to AV campaign has told me the referendum result could well depend on whether Ed Miliband "engages" with the issue, and gets actively and very obviously involved in supporting the Yes campaign. If Miliband's backing remains lukewarm, my No source claimed, then they are confident AV will be scuppered.

The No thinking is that if Miliband becomes very publicly associated with the pro-AV campaign, with lots of speeches, events and broadcast interviews, then it will give the green light for Labour supporters to vote Yes. Right now Labour voters are getting very mixed signals from Labour MPs, and the unions - and indeed overall those signals (especially the unions) are recommending they should vote No.

True, Miliband attended yesterday's Yes 2 AV event in London, alongside the former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy and the Green leader Caroline Lucas. But he made it clear at yesterday's event - as he has before - that most of his focus over the coming five weeks will be on the local elections, not the AV referendum. One of Miliband's senior aides has told me he "might" do "one more" AV event before polling day.

"Might"? "One more"? It's hardly the vigorous engagement that the No campaign fears.

Both the No and Yes camapigns think the Noes have a slight edge at the moment. And ironically both think that a low turnout will help the Yes campaign, as polls suggest that pro-AV people are much more determined to vote in the referendum. The higher the turnout then the more the hardline electoral reformers will have their votes countered by opponents and sceptics.

This is ironic because Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems fought ferociously for the referendum to be held on 5 May in order to boost the Yes vote with high turnouts in Scotland and Wales. Based on past turnout figures on election day we can expect a turnout of more than 60 per cent in Northern Ireland, over 50 per cent in Scotland, Wales in the 45-50 per cent area, and most of England where local elections are taking place may have a turnout in the late 30s. But both pro and anti AV campaigns think that the turnout in London, where there are no local elections, could be under 20 per cent.

If the AV result is close then we could see quite a post-result squabble over whether the result might have gone differently if there had been more equal turnouts.

Everyone agrees there's still everything to play for, simply because most voters don't even seem to be aware there is a referendum, let alone know how they'll vote.

The Electoral Commission booklets explaining AV to people, in a strictly neutral manner, should start dropping on the nation's 30 million or so doormats early next week.
.