Referendum on Electoral Reform 5th May 2011

It's a great shame that what should have been a sensible and apolitical debate on the pros and cons of "First past the post" versus "Alternative Vote" has degenerated into a slanging match between Party politicians.

Both sides have been economical with the truth, and some have been telling downright lies, repeatedly, using the Goebbels principle that if you tell a lie frequently enough it eventually becomes the accepted truth.

This is far more important for the future democracy of our country than which politician supports which system, and whether or not we like that politician. If you are voting YES because you don't like David Cameron, or if you are voting NO because you don't like Nick Clegg, you are totally missing the point.

It's about whether the existing voting system is democratic and allows you to have a greater say in who becomes our representative in Parliament. Is it right that 70% of the MPs currently in the House of Commons are there with the support of a MINORITY of their voters? Is it right that nearly every Government (if not all) since the 2nd World War have imposed their ideologies upon the country with less than half the country supporting them? What kind of democracy is that?

"AV" is far from perfect, but at least it does two important things: it retains the constituency link with a single MP, and it ensures that no MP is elected without the support of at least half the voters. What is bad about that?

The current system was just about defensible in the middle of the 20th century, when people were pretty much voting either for the Great Blue Tribe or the Great Red Tribe. Today's politics are more fluid, and we are no longer slavishly devoted to one of two Great Tribes.

So, I am saying YES to change on 5th May and would urge all who have not yet made up their mind to take this (probably) once in a generation opportunity to take a small step forward. Ignore all this talk of excessive cost, electronic counting machines, and so on. It's already been stated in a Parliamentary Answer that the cost of running either of the two systems are not that different, and there are no plans to use electronic counting machines.

Another myth put about is that you are obliged to place all candidates in order of preference. You have no such obligation. If you wish to cast a vote for only one candidate, and you think all the others are appalling then you just place a '1' against your candidate. Easy as 1,2,3 (or just 1 in your case!)

Vote YES to change.

Electoral Reform - Another Gem from the "No" Campaign

The other day Prime Minister David Cameron (who, unlike his Liberal Democrat Coalition partner and Deputy Nick Clegg, is against scrapping the "first-past-the-post" system) came out with the astonishing claim that, had last year's General Election been held under the Alternative Vote system it would have produced another five years of a Gordon Brown Labour Government!

Does Cameron have psychic powers? In order to make such a claim he would need to know what every voter's second and third (and fourth?) preferences would have been if the election had been held under the Alternative Vote system.

This is just another example of the pathetic attempts by the NO campaigners we can expect to see over the coming weeks to persuade us to hold on to a system that returns two thirds of our MPs to Parliament on less than 50% support of their constituents.

Voting Reform - The NO Campaigners Show Themselves

I wondered where they were hiding, but the "NO" campaigners have come out from under their stone at last, indicating their likely tactics in persuading us to stick with the existing "First past the Post" system.

Here are their key ideas: the Alternative Vote is more complicated; the Alternative Vote is more expensive; the Alternative Vote is likely to deliver more Coalition Governments.

Notice that the words democracy and democratic don't feature in any of this. That's no surprise because there is no argument in this world that can convince any right-minded person that a system delivering Members of Parliament representing a minority of their constituents (sometimes for life) is democratic.

On the issue of other systems being more complicated, are we not sufficiently intelligent to be able to cope? How on earth do the rest of Europe manage to handle it? Leaving aside the possible fact that they have clearer heads because they don't binge-drink like the British, I still think we can summon up sufficient intellectual capacity to deal with a slightly less simple method of voting and counting.

As for the cost, well we could make the thing a whole lot cheaper by abolishing elections. (Last time I looked, that was called a Dictatorship). Come to think of it, perhaps that's why 40% of our population don't bother to vote anyway, because they do not see it delivering anything relevant to their own ideas.

The "NO" campaigners are going to have to rely entirely upon fear and negativity in order to persuade us that it is better to accept the devil we know rather than the one we don't.

They should return to the primeval swamp from whence they came, in which inertia is the best method of survival, leaving the rest of us with brains to pursue our legitimate demand for more democracy. OK, some will argue that the "Alternative Vote" is not fully democratic, but from little acorns grow mighty oak trees.

More power to the "YES" Campaign!