Just a couple of highlights then for those that missed the shenanigans. First there was the No campaign...
Then there was the Yes campaign...
Finally there was grim reality...
Millions of mainly working-class electors have boycotted the electoral system since 2001. The Labour leadership knows that most of those are abstaining ex-Labour supporters. The reasons for this are obvious – their interests are not being effectively represented.
But AV doesn't promise to empower them. And it actually replicates one of the undemocratic aspects of FPTP. Ralph Miliband's criticism of FPTP was that it was used by party leaders to discipline rank and file members and force them to accept centrist policies, in order to win support from "marginal" constituencies. Under AV, the parties would be doing much the same thing in order to gain the "second preference" votes of their larger competitors.
I was going to vote no. But then I saw how pathetically the yes campaign was going to be beaten and I began to pity them. And since it's still effectively rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, I thought about voting yes after all.
Then I saw the Stephen Fry video, and went against it all over again. Politicians are going to start 'working in the national interest'? Stephen sweetie, there's no such animal. And the last thing we need is more collaborationist corporate centrists telling us that because they all agree it must be best for everyone. We're All In It Together could become our national fucking motto at this rate, which would be quite something, since it would be even more dishonest than the current 'My God and my right'.
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