Saturday 30 April 2011

Alternative voting.

I voted libdem in the general election.

I didn't do so because I thought they'd be anything other than a bunch of centre-right tossers, although the enthusiasm with which they embraced the chance to fuck over the nation surprised me.

I voted for them because they were alone out of the mainstream parties in calling for electoral reform. (Mainly anyway. I just couldn't bring myself to vote for New Labour this time round.)

I haven't got a clue which way the referendum is likely to fall, as I've seen no opinion polls or anything. Presumably now that the Royals have done their bit to spread a bit of cheer, the YES/NO campaigns will take a bigger share of the media's attention.

So it's pretty obvious that I'll be voting Yes on the 5th of May.

WIll it make a huge change? Probably not, but keeping the exisiting system certainly means nothing will change.

One of life's little ironies is that the LibDems unpopularity is likely to have an effect on what was one of their flagship policies.

Fuck Clegg, vote no.

Bloody stupid argument when you come to think of it. Fuck Cameron, Vote yes. Fuck both of them, vote yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no... Like a cat with a buttered piece of toast strapped to it's back.

Throw away the only chance you'll get in a generation to make a point? Talk about cutting of your nose to spite your face...

Anyway, the Tories don't want it. Most of the right wing media, including News International, don't want it. The BNP don't want it either, for whatever that's worth.

Just to be clear, AV does not mean you have to vote for the tories. You can vote for whoever you want to. Even just one party if that's all you agree with.

Here are some cats, that may be able to explain it a bit better.



I mentioned earlier that part of the reason I voted LibDem was because I didn't want to vote Labour. That's a pretty negative position to take, and I'd like to put a more positive slant on things.

The Labour party is comprised of many well meaning and left leaning folks, yet it occupies almost exactly the same part of the political spectrum as the other two big parties. Except for certain - mainly social justice - issues anyway.

And this is down to FPTP. Core Labour seats will remain Labour, even if Labour decides it's policy wil be to make the lives of traditional Labour voters worse. Same with the other parties. Elections are decided by a relatively small percentage of "swing" voters, and they occupy the centre right of the demographic. So either you pander to them or you don't get elected. So FPTP corrupts those well meaning left leaning politicians and activists. I think adobting AV would allow New Labour to adopt a far more left wing position. Hell, I might even vote for them again. Perhaps just behind the greens.

Finally, according to some that have spoken out against AV, "AV will lead to extremist parties getting a share of the vote"

Well first of all, it tends to be the Greens that do well in western democracies with some form of proportional representation. Secondly, the current coalition seems to be a pretty extremist entity right now. So was the 1945 Lavour Government by any sensible modern yardstick. The idea that we should be scared of extreme right parties gaining power when the current way of doing thins has skewed the entire political gamut in this country to the right seems nonsensical.

Anyway, there you go. I will be voting "YES" on May the 5th, and I recommend that you do too.

2 comments:

Pete said...

Vote "Yes". I did.

Anonymous said...

Yes (with a cherry on the top)