Nick Harvey wrote:Only question now is whether the useless operation which is Royal Snail can get Envelope B twelve miles to the Counting Officer in a fortnight.
Next post will probably be Tuesday, or Wednesday if they get a day in lieu. Then it'll wander about on Thursday before everything closes again for the nuptuials of Bill and Kate (Windsor and Middleton, not Turnbull and Silverton)... then Saturday, then BH Monday, so there's Tuesday and Wednesday.
I think I am going to vote yes - the reason - I am very annoyed at some of the reasons given by the "No" campaign.
I very much doubt we are going to be given another chance to have electoral reform in my lifetime so we should make the most of it.
I don't think either side has done themselves many favours in this campaign.
It's well documented here and elsewhere that the No camp has run a largely negative campaign, pointing out what's wrong with AV rather than extolling any compelling merits or virtues of retaining FPTP. That said, I don't think that's quite as disgraceful as some people would like to make out; this wasn't a referendum by consensus - it was forced upon the Conservatives and the electorate by the Lib Dems, and in a very real sense that's made it their obligation to put forward convincing arguments as to why AV is necessary, why this referendum was called, why the system should be changed. Perhaps this is simply a question of perspective, but I really do think that the Yes camp has a greater obligation to run a positive campaign that makes a case for their position than the No camp does; the latter is merely opposing someone else's proposal, and so a largely negative campaign in that context isn't as nonsensical or unsporting as some would like to believe.
While many have been quick to lambast the 'indefensible' negativity of the No campaign, the same people struggle to articulate a particularly compelling argument in favour of all this change.
There's a lot of noise about the lies of the No campaign, but dismissing the alleged myths of your opponents does not make for a constructive argument; that's just counter-negativity that's about as interesting and intelligent as "oh no it isn't", "oh yes it is".
There's a lot of noise from the Yes campaigners about how this will create more stable governments and clear election results, even though Australia - by far the largest of the three democracies that use AV for general elections - sat in a hung parliament for days after its last election, and now also has a coalition government. The Yes campaigners then say that what they mean is that there'll be fewer coalitions, and point to this being Australia's first coalition in a century; from where I'm sitting, that simply means that AV would be a bit less imperfect than the current system, but doesn't really solve that problem.
There's a lot of noise about how AV is used for Conservative party elections, some local and regional elections and some union leadership elections. This is about as compelling an argument as beating the drum that AV is used in Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea; it's not a positive affirmation of merit for its suitability for our national general elections to say that it's being used in other contexts and in other places. The question is not whether AV works in these other contexts; the question is whether AV works in the context of our general elections, and why, and the Yes camp has failed to answer this specific question positively or satisfactorily.
There's a lot of noise about how the political landscape has changed considerably, and how AV better represents the will of the electorate. This is probably the only area where the Yes campaign has articulated any kind of coherent argument, although again only in the weakest of terms. It's true that a wider range of votes will carry more weight, but only until those votes for fringe and one-issue parties start being dropped after the first round of voting. It's also true that many 'winners' will only win an election because they were the second or third choice of many voters; will knowing that your elected representative only got into office on this basis really create more stable government? In the context of our parliament, and our electorate, I'm not so sure.
But even as the No campaign keeps throwing shit to see what sticks, and the Yes campaign struggles to put a strong affirmative argument together to definitively set out why AV is a necessary change and one worth all this upheaval, it was actually Vince Cable who, on Friday, managed to finally say what the Yes campaign is all about, in his call to support AV to prevent future Tory victories. So much for better representing the will of the electorate; this is about changing the electoral system to try to deliberately limit the future success of one specific party.
So indeed, neither side has done a good job of making their positions clear - but this is politics, after all. Everyone has something to say about the No campaign's negative representations, but it's important that we call a spade a spade on the other side of the fence too. The Yes campaign isn't on a divine and just crusade to right the wrongs of our electoral system to protect the interests of the electorate. There's a very clear political motivation behind it as well; in the early stages of the campaign, it was discussed as the Lib Dems clearly stand to gain a lot from an AV landscape, but Vince Cable has quite explicitly articulated the Yes campaign's political motivations here, and I think that while everyone's having a good ol' time lambasting the Tories for their negativity and self-interest, it's important to view the other side with a critical eye too.
Nick Clegg famously called AV a 'miserable little compromise', right before he became its biggest fan, and now he and many others champion it as a revolution for the electorate, but the hypocrisy of his position stands on a foundation of self-interest, from the boost the Lib Dems could expect to gain in AV elections, to the subjugation of the Tory vote.
Meanwhile, the No campaign also clearly has its own self-interests in wanting to preserve the status quo, and has done a poor job of winning hearts and minds, choosing to simply attack anyone and anything that stands in favour of the Alternative Vote.
So while there's plenty of sanctimonious bullshit flying back and forth between both camps, and neither side retaining any great measure of credibility here, whatever they or their proponents might want to believe, how can one make a decision?
For me, it actually turned out to be a pretty easy decision. Once I'd shut out all the noise of the campaign, done some research of my own to verify some of the claims, looked at studies on AV from the left and the likes of the Institute of Public Policy Research, studies from the right and the likes of the Centre for Policy Studies, and reviewed various media sources, I feel I'm now well equipped to make a choice based on facts and data, rather than on the vitriol and propaganda of the campaign.
For those who are still sitting on the fence, that's really what it should come down to: a consideration of the facts, rather than voting 'cos I fuckin' HATE the Tories' or 'so I can wipe that smug grin off that little shit Clegg's face'.
Remember, both sides are as full of shit as each other.
Cruddas' arguments are facile, the Conservative Party election process is widely misquoted. The election is clearly on a FPTP basis, following an elimination process to find the two most popular candidates within the PCP. If he is prepared to open up the Labour leadership election to scrutiny it would be laughed out of court.
Quite simply giving those who voted for losing candidates on first preference, a second selection, goes against Natural justice.
DVB Cornwall wrote:The election is clearly on a FPTP basis, following an elimination process to find the two most popular candidates within the PCP.
So what you're saying, is that FPTP works nicely when you have two candidates, having removed the chaff that splits the vote?
Those who have compared AV to the Tory election process and the X Factor have, with the exception of a few illiterate types, mentioned that whilst it is not AV itself it is a *comparable* concept, a run off to remove the least popular candidates from the race.
It's wholly incomparable, if you extend the concept to a Parliamentary election the individual party selections for candidature would need to be open to the electorate as a whole and not within the selecting body.
I've just realised why the Tories are anti-AV - because AV means they've got much less chance of getting into power. Consider the Lib Dem voters who, if they choose a second preference are most likely to choose Labour, and you've got the answer.
The Lib Dem vote is big enough to swing an election, and if they all put Labour as second choice, Labour would win..
Not all LD voters are left wing, there a good number who would put an X for the Tory, half the seats including the party leader of the LD would be classed a Tory seat.
DVB Cornwall wrote:Not in LD heartlands, their hatred for Labour is underestimated.
