As the great man's guest must produce his good stories or songs at the evening banquet, as the platform orator exhibits his telling facts at mid-day, so the journalist lies under the stern obligation of extemporizing his lucid views, leading ideas, and nutshell truths for the breakfast table.
Cardinal J. H. Newman, Preface to The Idea of a University, 1852

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Why my MP is saying no to AV (and why I'm saying yes!)

My MP, Mark Lancaster, has a blog he's using to campaign against AV: http://marklancastermp.wordpress.com/

In theory he allows comments (that's to say he hasn't turned off the comment facility on his WordPress blog) but there aren't any visible yet. Here's what I tried to say. It is awaiting moderation, but somehow I suspect it could be waiting for some time!
Why don’t you come clean. There’s one very big reason you want to say no to AV: you wouldn’t be elected under AV! You were elected with 43.5% of the vote last year, so 56.5% of those who voted in your constituency did NOT want you*. It is a pretty safe bet that the vast majority of Green, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters would NOT have put you as one of the alternatives so almost certainly Labour would have been elected.

* How is THAT fair?
It seems it would be such a small change, yet it would mean I could vote for who I really want - I wouldn't be forced into chosing between voting tactically (which is what I've always done) and wasting my vote. Under AV I would almost certainly vote Green first, then Lib Dem followed by Labour or vice versa (depending on the individual candidate).

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