UK AV Referendum Poll

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The more I think about this, the more I'm tempted to spoil my ballot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A lot of people would probably just vote for 'their' party and not bother to fill out the rest of the ballot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm ready to admit that those last two reasonings might come across as petty partisanship, but remember guys, politics is a means to a goal and as long as everything happens legally and in the spirit of democracy and responsability I don't see a problem in playing a bit of obstructionism on a government I'd vehemently oppose.

There's really nothing wrong with basing a vote (even a hypothetical one) in a referendum on considerations other than those on the ballot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That system is used in devolved elections in Scotland and Wales (though in Wales the percentage of proportional seats is lower than in New Zealand). It's not been a brilliant success in Wales (to risk understatement) and there are potential problems looming in Scotland. Of course that doesn't mean that that system is inherently bad, just that it's not the perfect solution it's often proposed to be.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's not been a brilliant success in Wales (to risk understatement) and there are potential problems looming in Scotland.

Now you must elaborate.

It's late and I'm tired. So a ramble this must be.

How much do you know about what happened after the Assembly elections in 2007? That Godawful mess was a direct consequence of the halfway-house electoral system; parties fight elections as if they were held under the 'normal' electoral system and that's how most people vote (I know more than a few people, intelligent people at that, who were quite bemused at being presented with two ballot papers). But, of course, the results will never be the same as those held under the 'normal' electoral system. This provides an incentive for parties to lie about their post-election intentions, which is exactly what happened in 2007 and there are all sorts of other obvious problems. Not good from a democratic point of view.

There was (is?) in Wales an additional problem, and that's the error of having only a third of seats elected by the list. The main issue there is the political culture it promoted (promotes?). One particular party can win a working majority in a good year (and did so in 2003). None of the others can. This encouraged a very specific - and very unhealthy - form of backroom politics, one that the electorate knew very little about (apart from the occasional crisis; and there have been too many of those).

So you end up in the ridiculous farce of a ramshackle three-party coalition (the possibility of which had been denied - often quite angrily - during the campaign) with no obvious democratic mandate being agreed to by the three party leaders in question, only to fall apart before made formal because the leader of the smallest of the parties had forgotten the rules and procedures of his own party. But at least we did then get a properly conducted set of negotiations between Labour and Plaid a logical-ish coalition with a coherent programme, so it didn't end so badly...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Presumably that gets overturned by the government majority in the Commons, though who knows with time constraints.

Still, the problem is that this is one of those things that no one actually wants. Neither coalition party actually likes AV, and while a promise for a referendum on it was in the Labour manifesto, it was randomly inserted because it was felt that something ought to be said about political reform (because of the expenses mess) rather than out of commitment.

Tellingly, the only people who care are the sort of people who not only read the Observer, but actually like it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, everything's gone through now. It was nice having a relatively civilised and relatively non-partisan procedure for drawing constituency boundaries and I think we're all eventually going to miss it, irrespective of party. Precedent set, era ended, regrettably.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bit far, but I see wheat it's saying:

Please tell me that's from b3ta.com.

Apparently not.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, everything's gone through now. It was nice having a relatively civilised and relatively non-partisan procedure for drawing constituency boundaries and I think we're all eventually going to miss it, irrespective of party. Precedent set, era ended, regrettably.

How will the new redrawing system work ?

Please, don't tell me it will become the government's business...

Not directly, but the guidelines under which the commission will now work are highly political and there's also less chance for alternative proposals to get adopted.

So we're still better off than France for this kind of thing, but that's not saying a lot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What kind of guidelines ?

I take it you've not been reading the other thread?

There's a lot, but the main thing is an extremely strict 5% quota on constituencies which has been enacted for no reason other than a belief within the Conservative Party that such a rule would be electorally beneficial to them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's not an important enough story to get its own thread, so I'll put it here. But former Croydon Central MP Andrew Pelling (elected as a Tory in 2005, ceased to be so after what could euphemistically be described as a spot of bother, ran as an Independent in 2010, lost) has joined the Labour Party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Although, if MMP is good enough for Scotland and Wales, and has produced quite stable governments in both assemblies

As mentioned already () MMP has not produced stability in Wales (indeed instability has been worryingly common; I won't bore everyone with what happened four years ago again, but the first few years of the Assembly were an utter mess with the leaders of the two largest parties forced out within a very narrow period of time).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Since when is the system used in Australia for millenia "unproven"?

We aren't having a vote on whether to use the Australian federal system

But the system used in some Australian state elections so, yeah. Hardly unproven either. Though as we aren't used to it large numbers of people will not use their preferences but just vote for their party of choice.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

On the subject of stupid arguments, the most deranged of all hasn't been raised yet; the idea that AV will be a magic bullet to cure all that is wrong with the political system in this country.

Does anyone have any guesses as to what the geography of this referendum might look light? e.g. most pro/anti areas. I haven't thought about this enough yet.

Probably the most favourable areas would be 'liberal' residential districts.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Since when is the system used in Australia for millenia "unproven"?

We aren't having a vote on whether to use the Australian federal system

In that votes that don't rank all choices won't be thrown out, or are you referring to something entirely different here?

First option.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

On the subject of stupid arguments, the most deranged of all hasn't been raised yet; the idea that AV will be a magic bullet to cure all that is wrong with the political system in this country.

Maybe because it's such a crazy idea that no-one really believes it?

I personally suspect that those people in the real world who make that claim are moles working for the no campaign.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Fifty years? I don't think we should ever be in the business of making predictions that far into the future.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It has remained the same for 400 years... So I don't think it's an irrealistic extrapolation.

Ignoring the fact that Britain didn't become even semi-democratic until 1884, that's not actually true. Until the Attlee government changed things there was a thing called the business vote (which meant that the owners of businesses/property could vote both at home and wherever they had other interests), university graduates elected both an MP in their own constituency and one representing their old university and it was not unusual for constituencies to have two members. Until 1918 people entitled to vote in borough constituencies under a freehold franchise were also entitled to vote in the nearest county constituency. And so on.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

pwned

[Filuwaúrdjan]

From what I understand of certain things, I don't think the Green Party (of England and Wales) would actually want much greater media attention than they get at present. There's some messy stuff that needs cleaning up before they're ready for primetime; not an issue the Scottish Greens have, btw.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's unbelievable how much of a crap, the country doesn't give.

Not really. We are in an economic slump, we have mass unemployment, the government is making large cuts to services (whether directly or indirectly) and is proposing/implementing troubling changes to various public institutions. Given that, why should it be surprising that most people don't care about a referendum on a technical issue?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A very high percentage of people (perhaps a majority? Certainly a large minority) will only use one preference anyway. I'm reasonably sure that AV would have less of an impact than its advocates and detractors presume.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

B3ta fights back:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm going to spoil my ballot. I was tempted to do that anyway (I probably mentioned that a while back) but the crass stupidity of both official campaigns has helped to make up my mind. I'm not an eight year old and don't like being treated like one.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm going to spoil my ballot. I was tempted to do that anyway (I probably mentioned that a while back) but the crass stupidity of both official campaigns has helped to make up my mind. I'm not an eight year old and don't like being treated like one.

Do you want some juice and a biscuit?

Depends on the biscuit. Are there an custard creams left?