EXCITED about the Euro elections? No, neither am I. If it wasn’t for a letter from the returning officer reminding me I have a postal vote, I would barely be aware of the polling date, which is May 22.

I’m told the Conservative candidates, led by former minister Timothy Kirkhope, have been spotted in Malton; no doubt leaflets from all parties will come through the post. But if I hadn’t registered for a postal vote – which makes it painless, so long as you work out which piece of paper to put in which envelope – I’m not sure I would summon the energy to vote for anyone.

I say that as former chairman of the Conservative North Yorkshire Euro-constituency in the days when it was held by Edward MacMillan Scott, nowadays a Lib Dem. I respected Edward for the work he did, spreading the message of democracy in eastern Europe and elsewhere. But I never developed respect for the European Parliament itself.

In the eyes of most British voters, it never established credibility as an institution that matters. We know little of what it does, other than employing 1,000 translators, moving pointlessly between Brussels and Strasbourg every month, and costing 1.7bn euros a year.

My strongest memory of visiting the monstrous Brussels building is of witnessing inexplicable shenanigans involving bundles of cash in an in-house restaurant; apparently cash accounting discouraged corruption.

Ardent Europhiles argue that the Parliament provides vital oversight of executive action and rule-making by the Commission in Brussels. But even middle-of-the-road Eurosceptics like me would happily vote the European Parliament out of existence given the chance. We would refer democratic scrutiny to come from national parliaments via MPs and ministers we have already elected to govern us.

And then there’s proportional representation and a vote-counting system named after a mathematician called Victor D’Hondt. This long-dead Belgian and today’s Eurocrats have concocted a formula that removes almost all personal contact and recognition between constituents and MEPs. We finish up with a list of six names representing an artificial “region” made up of most of Yorkshire plus the Lincolnshire side of the Humber.

The batch who won the D’Hondt lottery in 2009 included Godfrey Bloom – too colourful even for Ukip, and far-right Andrew Brons, representing the British Democratic Party. Tim Kirkhope has stature, but I’m afraid 99 out of 100 voters would not recognise most of the candidates anyway.

What to do? We could throw our vote away, or use it for mischievous protest. But that’s not what I’ll suggest. Let’s remember that voting is a privilege and serious obligation. Whenever you have a vote, use it – in the hope the candidates you choose will bring the change you want. Even if you have to hold your nose, as I will when I slip the Euro ballot into the right envelope.