Mark Garnier, our recently elected MP said in his “View From Westminster” (Kidderminster Shuttle, 7th September) that he was against the AV voting system that is up for referendum next May. He argued that the 31% of voters who opted for Richard Taylor would have not had their second preferences considered until last because he’d come a close second.
Mark is picking a very warped way of looking at the system. The people who voted for Richard first might well have been elated, not because their second preference wouldn’t have been considered before BNP, Ukip, Liberal Democrats or Labour (in that order), but because as the second votes for each of those parties had mounted up until one candidate had more than 50%, Richard may well have beaten Mark. I think he would.
Mark subtly sells our current “first past the post” voting system as “a system we are all familiar with”. Well, after the expenses scandal, familiarity breeds contempt. He also says, “Electors are asked not to pick their favourite candidate, but to rank them in order of preference.” Typical political double-talk. He should have said, “Electors are asked not just to pick their favourite candidate, but also their order of preference for the others.” Isn’t it better to say to someone, “If you don’t get your first choice, who would you like next?” rather than, “You didn’t get your first choice so your vote is wasted?”
AV is not perfect, but it’s the system that both the Conservative and Labour parties use for electing their leader, so why not us? Are these people so much cleverer than us? Of course not. What the AV vote offers is the chance for people to vote for what they want instead of what they don’t. How many people reading this voted against Cameron or against Brown instead of for something? What way is that to run an electoral system?
AV also offers the chance for a regular turn-over of MPs, all of whom really have to prove themselves to win again, rather than sit smugly knowing no other party will ever oust them. It’s the multitude of safe seats across the country that lay at the heart of the expenses scandal. To be honest, AV may well not favour my party. It probably won’t but it’s better than an archaic system that forces people to vote tactically and gives us stale, complacent MPs.
Many of us inside and outside the coalition might be having a hard time coming to terms with this way of working. Yet, how much better is it to have several points of view at the decision making table than one with a massive majority riding roughshod over anybody else’s views as we have in Wyre Forest District Council and Worcestershire County Council? That’s why I’m voting in favour of a fairer voting system next May.
Neville Farmer
Parliamentary Spokesman
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
