AV passnotes no2

My colours were nailed to the mast months ago. I remain in favour of the Alternative Vote for UK elections. This is not a compromise position. It simply ensures that the winning candidate is the person most of us want, nothing more, nothing less.

So I watched the Yes to AV election broadcast from last night. This was the one with the woman on the loudspeaker.

The main arguments presented were that AV would make MPs:

• more responsive to their constituents
• less inclined to fiddle their expenses
• less secure in safe seats

I’m not sure AV delivers any of these. The advantage is that voters won’t have to hold their nose whilst voting. MPs won’t be able to wield ‘Vote for me or you’ll be letting that lot in’ stick at voters. Voters can vote for the candidate that most aligns to their views.

If when the votes are counted, that doesn’t take any candidate over the line, then we’ll look at 2nd choices.

Of the other assumptions, it would certainly make some constituencies less safe, but it might make others safer (If that’s what the voters wanted). And I really don’t see it making any difference to expense fiddling.

The Yes campaign are making the worst of what should be a winning argument.

So what about the no to AV broadcast?

They’re straight in there with it’ll lead to coalitions. The problem is that we’ve been heading towards coalitions for the last 60 years. The Fib / Con coalition was delivered by First Past the Post.

Given the current popularity of the parties I’m inclined to believe that AV will not make a huge difference to the chances of more coalitions; in fact it’s been shown that in both 1979 and 1997 we’d have had bigger majority governments such was the unpopularity of the losing party. Under AV you’ll only get a coalition if that’s what the voters want.

We then had the horse race!. This is the most ridiculous analogy going. We’re choosing an MP not racing horses. If you have to use horse racing as analogy then you’d have to say that none of the horses crossed the line in the race that was shown. They ran out of steam (votes) before the finish and he race is over only when it’s over.

Finally, the broadcast resorts to this idea that some people get more than one vote. No they don’t. At the end of the count their will be two piles, those For the winning candidate and those Against.

There’s no duplication of votes just two piles.

I think there’s a valid argument for wanting Government to be a contest between two conflicting points of view – Labour v Conservative. That everything else is an irrelevance. I happen to think the complexities of modern life no longer allow for that and we damage our own parties if we do not try to respond to the changing nuances those complexities bring.

Given I’m supporting AV, I should be open about how I would tend vote in an election held under that system.

1. Labour
2. Green Party
3. Lib Dems (although their movement to the right is possibly pushing them down my preferences further)
4. Conservative Party
5. Ukip

Our present system is still a democratic system and on the whole, representatives of all the parties do work hard under it. It’s really a ridiculous time to be having this referendum when there’s so much more important stuff to address. But, if we have to have it now, we should take a considered objective view. So let’s not insult voters by making claims or attacks that can not be met.