‘AV It

In a rare move for the United Kingdom, we had a referendum only a few days ago on the subject of the “Alternative Vote”. This referendum was such that there was the chance that, if we had voted Yes, then a loser who is well liked could one day become your local MP – which would offer a potential career opportunity to Peter Andre.

Campaigning on the matter had been quite limited, but what there was of it was of astonishingly poor taste, unpredictable and largely quite insulting – a bit like Charlie Sheen’s recent behaviour… he should have stuck to making furniture polish…

The reason for the poor taste in the campaign is the fact that the propaganda did not follow strict party lines, hence no accountability and therefore the ability to print whatever you wanted – a bit like the journalists at the News of the World used to, because Andy Coulson knew nothing about the stories been borne out of phone hacking. Poor old Coulson was just an innocent bystander who, even though it wasn’t his fault, was forced to resign from his job – twice.

The No Campaign was clear: one person should only be allowed one vote – something which they slightly undermined themselves with when they told me about this twice (once in a flyer addressed to me at my flat and once in a flyer addressed to me at my parent’s house) I believe this is due to me being on two electoral registers and therefore able to make a bit of mockery of the No Campaign’s one person, one vote ethos.

The whole notion of holding this referendum on the Alternative Vote is slightly bizarre, mainly because it wasn’t featured in the manifestos of any political party at the 2010 general election. Despite the myth and the garbage spewed out by the No Campaign, Nick Clegg does not want use of instant run-off in elections; he would like the a Parliament that is a proportional representation of how the electorate voted – and a smooch and cuddle from David Cameron.

Another pitiful argument used on behalf of the No Campaign was the assertion that the people would fail to understand how to vote and that it was too complicated. This statement is a tad insulting, whilst I am not a huge advocate of the intelligence of the general members of the public I would expect that the bulk of people are able to count to 3 – it really isn’t that hard, I can count up to 68… as soon as I get to 69 I start thinking of other things and giggling like a little girl.

Yet saying Alternative Vote is harder to understand that First Past the Post is probably a valid statement. However making a cup of tea is harder than making a glass of water and yet I am still prepared and capable to making a cup of tea – so I think I have just blow that argument out of the water and/or cup of tea.

A few more of the arguments used by the No Campaign include the bizarre accusation that the referendum is un-British and their leaflet contained a picture of a running race where the person coming fourth out of four is declared the winner under the Alternative Voting system – which would not have been the case as his votes would be reallocated first. Although I suppose if you put those two augments for No together, what could be more British than a British person coming last in a running race?

Possibly the worst argument of them all was the typical “very few other countries use it, so why should we” which I suppose is a valid point in respect of its limited use on a macro level. The No Campaign reeled off Alternative Vote using countries such as Australia, Papa New Guinea and Fiji; which is news to me as I was of the understanding that Fiji was currently under the rule of military dictatorship – but then apparently I’m not capable of even understanding the system, so what do I know?

I should not say that the Yes Campaign have been a great deal better in their arguments and literature; probably their lowest moment was when they stated that we should vote Yes because the First Past the Post system allowed the expenses scandal to happen and hence implied that such a scandal wouldn’t happen in a House of Commons elected via the Alternative Vote. Quite why this assertion is made is beyond me – it’s not as though an improved Patient/Doctor care charter would have convinced Harold Shipman that what he was doing was wrong; and the 37th relaunch of the FA’s Respect Campaign failed in its attempt to prevent Wayne Rooney from launching a volley of profanities at the referee… the assistant referees… the opposition players… the opposition supporters… his own supporters… and, bizarrely, a cameraman…

No doubt that whist people joked that they would fill in the their ballot form with Yes as their first preference and No as their second preference; the arguments and information presented were so unclear that if would have been preferable if their was an option to vote Maybe – and if there was, then the overused joke about filling in the referendum ballot paper using an Alternative Voting method would work better as it contained 3 options instead of 2.

Unfortunately things hit rock bottom in the campaigns when the arguments became:

• The Liberal Democrats said that you should vote Yes to ensure that you get less Conservative MPs – despite being in a Coalition Government with the Conservatives.

• The Conservatives said that you should vote No to ensure that we don’t end up always producing a Coalition Government – despite them currently being part of a Coalition Government.*

But of course the key thing to remember is that the Coalition Government is working…

When the final votes came in they were: 6.15m people voted for Yes – which is quite a lot of people to vote for Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Chris Howe and Steve Squire’s 1970s prog-rock band… and 13.01m people said No… well… it could have been that… or it could have been that Ian Paisley was the only person to vote that way… and he completed his ballot paper in his usual manner…





* That might not be strictly true – hitting rock bottom may have occurred when Peter Stringfellow was asked to present the argument for the No Campaign the during a debate on Radio 2…