Politics is not a game known for honesty but I am getting really fed up with the twisting of the facts being spouted by the No2AV campaigners in the run up to the referendum.
Think for a moment, if they had a good argument for voting against AV, why do they only use sniping and sneering? Why do they try to scare people with threats of “the BNP will be stronger” (far from true, ask the BNP)? It’s because they’re scared they’re going to lose their unfair advantage.
They don’t want the millions who voted against them in the last election to have an equal say. Despite this, if AV is so awful, why would so many Labour MPs be in favour of it when they know it’ll make their work harder? The reason is simple; they believe in democracy and AV will result in governments that are closer to what the WHOLE nation wants.
Here are a few No Voter myths exploded:
• “The Lib Dems would always be part of a coalition government” RUBBISH! – Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University has calculated that the 1997 election being run under AV would have given Tony Blair’s Labour Party an even bigger majority. In 2010, the LibDems would have only won about 20 more seats but that would have made a Labour/LibDem coalition more feasible, which probably better reflects what the 7 million LibDem voters and 9 million Labour voters would have preferred. In the 90 years that Australia has used AV, it has elected only one coalition, while Britain has had at least three and Canada’s provinces even more. Both of them use First Past The Post.
• “AV is unfair because supporters of fringe parties can end up having their vote counted five or six times.” TWISTING THE FACTS! What they’re actually scared of is that those voters have any say at all. Only one of your crosses on your ballot paper can actually affect the result. It might not be your first choice but it means your opinion is counted. For the first time, voters for party’s other that the main two are heard.
• “Only three other countries use AV” NOT TRUE. France and Ireland use similar systems. So do many British unions and the Conservative and Labour parties of Great Britain use it to choose their leaders. If it’s good enough for them, why not us?
• “It takes ages to count and it has to be done by machine” – NOT TRUE. The Australians have been counting their elections this way since before most of Australia had electricity. If they can do it, why can’t we?
• “The next election will cost £250 million under AV” – NOT TRUE. The only difference in cost is if we buy counting machines, which we don’t have to, and if we do the cost will be spread across several elections, so this is a CON.
• “First Past The Post is fair” - Only if you have a two party system. Remember the words of the Tory canvasser on your doorstep – under the First Past The Post, “a vote for anyone except us is wasted.” Very Fair I don’t think!
• “First Past The Post is the most widely used system in the world” – NOT TRUE. Various forms of proportional representation are much more widely used but the Conservative Party wouldn’t offer that option in the referendum. AV is the next best thing and far better that we vote for an improvement than stay with our tired old unfair First Past The Post system.
• “First Past The Post excludes extremist parties” – NOT TRUE. AV naturally gives a more balanced representation of a constituency’s electorate’s views because it takes everyone’s preferences into account. It is actually more likely to favour the parties towards the middle.
• “First Past The Post creates strong governments.” - Which is like saying we shouldn’t allow people who don’t vote for the main two parties to have their views heard. Why not go the whole hog and have a dictatorship?
• “AV would have no effect on safe seats” - NOT TRUE. It might not get rid of all of them but it will certainly reduce their numbers and it will definitely make all MPs work harder to prove their worth. It’s a good way of stopping them cheating on their expenses.
• “Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats want the change the way we vote” – So do UKip, the Green Party and much of the Labour Party, including its leader, who was chosen by AV, and many millions of others who are sick of being told that their vote is wasted.
• “Under coalitions, any promises they made during the campaign are thrown out of the window.” NOT TRUE! Of course, coalition means compromise because the parties involved will have different views and must negotiate to see which of their policies get enacted. Don’t just take my word for it. Read the Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos from last year and compare to what they’ve done in coalition. You’ll find a surprising number of both parties’ policies succeeding, including over 60 Liberal Democrat policies. But under a one-party government, more than half the voters will never see the policies they voted for happening. Anyway, this coalition was elected under their precious First Past The Post system, so what has it got to do with this debate?
Remember this, in the last election, over 10 million people voted against both Labour and the Conservatives. That’s more than voted for Labour. Under our current system, over one third of the country’s votes would have been “wasted”. Under AV, those voters would have been heard! I’m voting for AV because I’m fed up with being told my vote is wasted. An honest politician would be willing to fight his or her campaign on a level playing field. Take Karen Buck MP, an honourable Labour MP who is voting for AV even though she knows it would have cost her her seat last year. She’s voting for it because she knows the importance of honest democracy. Anyone voting against AV clearly doesn’t want to lose their unfair advantage. That is anti-democratic and like the NO campaign, as dishonest as a Duck House.
I want British people to vote FOR the preferences they want not AGAINST the party they don’t want. That’s why I’m voting FOR AV on May 5th.
April 23, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Neville, good to debate with you this afternoon when you mentioned some of the “myths” you write about above.
May I correct you on one: the Conservative party do not use AV to elect their leader. They use the system the French use for their presidential elections. When the least successful candidate is eliminated the people VOTE AGAIN, for those left in. You accuse the No camapign of being dishonest and there you go knowingly repeating this falsehood! What are we to make of it?
I also noted this afternoon that you said that the AV system “could” cost £250million – that’s all the No campaign is saying and you agreed!
Best of luck! Ken Pollock
April 24, 2011 at 7:52 am
Dear Ken,
thank you for you comment. The No Campaign leaflets state that the AV elections WILL cost £250 and have scared a lot of people with that. At no point do they say that it doesn’t have to cost this amount and so it is a deliberate attempt to convince the public that this is the case. You know that very well. A First Past The Post election could also cost £250 million if we were daft enough to waste the money but the NO campaign isn’t saying that. It is this kind of twisting of the facts that I’m referring to. You might as well say that either system could produce a BNP parliament, which they could if the people voted that way.
As to the electoral system for party leaders, your argument is moot, because all the party leaders are elected by a system similar to AV in its construct, as is the Irish President and the French system you refer to. The fact that you vote a second or third time is, frankly, irrelevant to the argument. Again, it is the NO Votes insistence that there is something obscure and complex about this kind of electoral system that is deliberately obfuscating because all these parties use a system even more complex, based on the same principles.
One other point, please note that Miles didn’t actually quote figures when you attacked him, the Chair did. Miles just used positions, not statistics. Miles is a decent man not used to the rough and tumble of public political debate and I feel you were unfair going for the throat in your first sentence, suggesting that it was appalling a University lecturer should use figures that are, according to your assertion, pulled out of the air. This is an old political debate trick because he did not have the right to reply and so your point was made unchallenged. But, in fact, the figures the chair used from the Essex University study were also used by the self-same Strathclyde University Professor, John Curtice that you then used as your own expert reference. If he is the reliable source you claimed, perhaps it would be useful to study his views further because the paper he published recently confirms far more arguments for voting Yes than No.
For me, what is upsetting about the NO campaigners is that they are simply not interested in fairness. Harriet’s constant quiet references to coalitions, as though AV promises loads of them, which she knows is not the case, are symbols of a campaign based on clinging on without any good reason, other than to maintain an unfair advantage to two parties, particularly to one. Belief in your parties principles are fine, but they should not undermine a desire for fairness. AV doesn’t give the LibDems or other smaller parties an unfair advantage, it doesn’t even redress the balance, but First Past The Post is unfit for a multi-party system and as we saw last year, there are many voters who would like a wider choice. Many Conservatives and Labour can see the unfairness in First Past The Post and are strong enough in their convictions that they see no need to maintain its uneven playing field.
best wishes
Neville Farmer