Who cares about AV

Now I confess I have a very low boredom threshold. I seldom watch TV and last night, whilst millions enjoyed watching Comic Relief, I read, listened to music, played a little myself and painted. Not that I am anti the idea of giving money to charity, I’m not. I just don’t see why I have to endure the idea of watching people who aren’t funny and endure them making fools of themselves for hours .
I admit it, as the years go on, I have become a grumpy old man. One of my pet hates on the blogosphere at the moment is all the fuss being made about AV. Those who are ‘for’ it keep trying to tell me it will save the planet, restore justice to the oppressed, feed the hungry and bring a new level of democracy to our voting system.

On the other hand, the “no” lobby insist any change from FPTP will bring instability, economic and political chaos and the emergence of Beelzebub and the Hordes of the Night.

Call me cynical, but I don’t think either side is really telling me the way it is. In fact, the way I see it is that if we had been allowed to vote AV in the last election, we would have still had a Tory/ Lib Dem coalition, except the Conservatives would have had a few less seats. As for previous elections, well the evidence from what I have read has tended to lean a little more favourably towards Labour, but not by any huge amount.

So, it seems they want us to vote on an election system where one option (FPTP) will result in the election of Candidate A and the other system (AV) will bring the election of Candidate A. If that’s the case,, why bother to change it?

The whole thing just seems like one big joke – with no real choice being offered in the first place. It’s not even as if the population are chomping at the bit and saying they want change. Sure, the Lib Dems have been spouting on about it for years, but until they came to power, they were all in favour of AV. Since Citizen Dave gave a couple of them seats around the Cabinet table they have watered down their views so much, its hard to spot which one of them isn’t a Tory. Gone are all the ideals of true electoral reform and instead they call for a wishy washy voting system that marginally favours their own politics.

The pro-lobby are probably hoping that holding the referendum on May 5th will help their cause, because people will be voting in local council elections at the same time. But let’s not forget that, on average, only about 40% of voters turn out on Election Day. So, whatever the result, it isn’t going to offer a true representation of the “people’s will” anyway.

Not that this will stop either side when the result is declared. If the “Yes” lobby win they will hail it as a positive result for democracy and if “No’s” succeed, they will argue their campaign has been vindicated – this is even though as many as two-thirds of the electorate may not vote.

The whole thing is boring and let’s faces it, pretty meaningless. The end product will largely be the same whatever the result and will put back the real opportunity for true electoral for a generation. Courtesy of Clegg selling out the people will not have the opportunity to consider the Single Transferrable Vote – the one option that could have changed the face of British politics.As it is, Clegg wants us to keep the same corrupt system, or replace it with a mechanism that will guarantee votes for extreme parties will be far more status than they deserve.

No wonder Cameron gets on so well with him.

So, on referendum day which way will I vote? Well in an ideal world, I wouldn’t, but the facts of the matter are that I will go to the polling station to vote against my local Tory councillors. As a result the election officials will almost certainly give me a voting slip for the referendum. Now, I have never spoiled a ballot paper in my life – it always seems a total waste of time. So, I will have to choose – and neither of them appeal to me.

I guess in the end I will probably go along with AV, but not because I like it. I don’t, but I like FPTP even less. I have spent large chunks of my life calling for electoral reform and have been an advocate of STV for over 40 years. To have it taken away from me by a fellow supporter of the system (Nick Clegg) is an unforgivable act of treachery.

I hope history rewards him appropriately with the argument that he was probably one of the weakest leaders the Liberal/ Social Democratic movement have seen since the days of the Whigs.

If the Lib Dems have any sense of self-respect they will dump him and the other quislings in the Tory Cabinet at the earliest opportunity