Monthly Archives: April 2011

No Smiling But Plenty Of Attention For The Immortal Nick Clegg

The No to AV Campaign relies on someheavy handed patronising tactics. The leaflet put through my door asks, as its title

question:

IS NOW REALLY THE TIME TO WASTE £250 million ON CHANGING OUR VOTING SYSTEM?

Which begs the question whether there is ever a time to waste any money? Surely the question should ask whether the money should be spent or not? Page 2 of the leaflet states that the “LibDems” and Nick Clegg would “always be part of the government”. This presupposes that they will get so many votes in future or that other parties will never vote for each other. It also presumes that Nick Clegg is both immortal and will always be Liberal leader!

The real arguments against AV are listed on the back:

The No Campaign says AV is

• Complicated – this is patronising in the extreme: surely people can be trusted to work out whether they wish to count their candidates in preferential order? It is as simple as 1,2,3… supporters of the thieving Tory bastards will presumable just put down 1.
• Costly – all elections cost money. Electronic voting machines will save money in the long term because their use will mean that council staff won’t be paid to count votes all through the night.
• Unfair – this argument presupposes that some people get more than one vote, although it doesn’t actually say this on the form put through my letterbox. In fact, AV is a system for running a series of elections all at once so that each time the bottom loser drops out. There are, in effect, several elections held simultaneously, with the presumption that those voting for candidates other than the bottom loser will wish to keep their votes intact. The No campaign says that this means that supporters of minor candidates get to have more than one vote. I can see the argument but surely it is more unfair to continue with the present system whereby you get represented in Parliament by someone who need only receive minority support from any one constituency?
• Confusing - this is the same argument as the first one but with a different title
• Only used by 3 other countries – so what? First past the post is only used by one other country in Europe: the Vatican City!
• Not PR – It is noteworthy that this leaflet has clearly been delivered by supporters of the thieving Tory bastards because it was wrapped up in a thieving Tory bastard leaflet. Strange that these people use an argument that AV is not something else that they would oppose!
• Second Best – this is a non-starter, surely? This reason is simply a restatement of the leafleteers opinion.

I was disappointed by the leaflet’s paucity. It would have been easy to make a stronger case but to do this here now would help the supporters of the thieving Tory bastards, which I’m not going to do. Let them do their own work.

By the way, I will be explaining, at some convenient future point, who qualifies to be an actual thieving Tory bastard and who only makes supporter status.