This two and a half day week has worn me out, so, after a good lunch with PW I've bunked off this afternoon to write this....
In a week's time the nation decides - well about 40% of it will - on whether or not to change the voting system from First Past The Post to the Alternative Vote system of proportional representation. Having swung from undecided to No and back to undecided again, I got in touch with my good Scrabbling friend Jan in Australia, where, depending on the type of election being held, they have had various AV systems in force for years, and asked her for her views.
Jan, who has a long association with Oz politics, having served as a local councillor and as a State government employee, and has run election campaigns using AV, knows a thing or two about this PR business, as I found out. The long but highly informative reply she sent me (see here for the full text) was quite an eye opener.
The No campaign like to tell us AV is too complicated, and although the basic version we are adopting is only difficult to understand if your brain leaks info like a dunked teabag, reading Jan's missive it can be as complicated as a legislature wants it to be. One particular example is that when faced with a choice of say six or more candidates, most voters will not bother to rank beyond three so the "optional preference" system is adopted. Say Labour tell their voters that if you put 1 by the Labour candidate it is then taken as read that your other preferences are in line with whatever Labour has negotiated with other political parties. This sounds somewhat dangerous to me, as it panders to intellectual laziness. I want to make my own mind up what my preferences are not have them determined for me by my first choice candidate's Head Office, and if I refuse to rank the BNP what of it?
Staying with the Monster Raving Fascist Party, why should their voters' second and third choices suddenly become relevant to deciding my MP? They are currently disenfranchised under FPTP, but hey, so what!
I have heard it said that we who feel royally (to use a topical word) shafted having voted Lib Dem in 2010 as a protest against Gordon Brown's woeful tenure should vote Yes simply because Cameron wants us to vote No. That is far too simplistic a view in my opinion. You could equallly say vote No because obsequious fawning Eton fag Clegg (yup, I'm not a fan) wants you to vote Yes, or, conversely, retaining FPTP will reduce the Lib Dems to the rump they deserve to be after the next General Election. I want to vote for or against something purely on its own merits, not beause it might piss off one or other party leader. We are talking about permanently changing a voting system for national government to a method that produces just as many anomalies. I say permanently because it will not change again in my lifetime that's for sure.
If the Lib Dems had thought this through, they should have insisted that the referendum was on PR as a concept and not restricted to AV vs FPTP, and if the Yes vote wins to introduce it first on a trial basis for local government elections to see how it works. That way the Yes campaign would gain far more support, me included. The way the referendum is set up strongly favours the No camp, but having said that, I've finally decided that's how I'm voting because we are being asked the wrong question. There, I've made my mind up at last!
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