AV no campaign

[throckenholt]

I am the only one who is annoyed by the blatant propaganda of the AV no campaign. We have had two leaflets through the door in the last few days that are full of misrepresentations and negative spin.

The impression is that AV is hopelessly unfair, incredibly complicated and will undermine life in the UK. And it is all a personal ego trip of Nick Clegg (who is currently to blame for all the UK's ills). I may be paraphrasing but that is definitely how it reads.

I am not particularly keen on AV per se (only marginally better than our current system) - but I am appalled by the tone of the current campaign. It really is smear politics at its worst and I don't think it does anything to raise the tone of politics and encourage people to want to be part of it. Any politician that signs up to that campaign should be ashamed of themselves.

I haven't yet seen any pro campaign literature so can't comment on that.

TBH Cameron is in a no win situation.

If it is yes the drooling right wing tory will have palpitations.

If it is no his bitch Clegg will get shit from his own party for entering a coalition with a bunch of scum tories who will cause untold damage to society and public services whilst even further enriching their "mates"

Giddy, have i missed something the LD's want a fully elected Lords not one with 80% appointed.

"The proposal to appoint 80% of a reformed upper House of Parliament is being considered by No 10 in the event of a 'no' result in the upcoming referendum on electoral reform"

Losing the referendum would be much worse for Cameron than for Clegg. The Liberals can try again in a few years if they lose now. If we move to AV now, FPTP is gone forever. The Tory right would never forgive Cameron.

I don't believe all the lies, so I'm voting Yes. I think the noes will have it though

May be my post wasn't clear.

If you want a clear and 'disinterested' explanation of AV, read this:

PSA AV Briefing Paper

www.psa.ac.uk/PSAPubs/TheAlternativeVoteBriefingPaper.pdf

Surprised at the misinformation and bashing of the Electoral Reform Society. It is a company limited by guarantee - it has no shareholders (so no profits and no distribution of profits).

The ERS was originally called "the Proportional Representation Society", so it should hardly make anyone fall off their chair that ERS are in favour of a more proportional voting system.

The thing that annoys me most about the parties' campaigning is that the arguments about fair/unfair are all partisan-political - the Conservatives will lose heavily from it, so are vehemently opposed, Lib Dems will be big gainers so are very pro and there has been almost no literature giving an unbiased explanation of it.

Very few people seem to know that in AV you can only have a winner with >50% of the vote - but where you have two big political beasts who benefit from the current system, you could be forgiven from reading their material for thinking that a candidate with the minority of the vote could win.

" the arguments about fair/unfair are all partisan-political "

Of course they are. PR was only ever a manifesto item for the Lib Dems because they knew it was their only chance at government.... not because they thought it was better for the country. Mainstream Labour and Conservative are therefore not in favour and Milliband nailing his colours to the 'yes' mast is merely another attempt to distance himself from the Brown/Blair years.