That would be just as well, as the Alternative Vote is not a proportional system and might be worse than First Past The Post.

They don't do themselves any favours politicians do they? What clearer illustration do we need of the rotten machinations of government in British Capitalism PLC? They are "Political Whores Trading" to quote the article in last month's Socialist Standard. Only 8 weeks ago these hookers...male and female were falling over themselves to curry our favour and catch that precious vote. We were duly awarded our 5 seconds of democracy whilst crossing the X and now here we are. This is the "Coalition" folks. A broad church of dirty liars, goons and blowhards who control us in the service of their masters. They administrate our misfortune...Capitalism.

What's the point when they all preach austerity at us from their high-chairs whilst they continue with their banking chums to get richer and richer?

Conservative, Labour, Lib-Dems, they're all the same.

The only voting reform I'd like is a vote to hang the lot of them.

Hours after the election result Gordon Brown, and many Labour MPs, were talking up electoral reform and offering AV on a silver platter. Now they're against it.

Obviously the offer was more about stalling the Lib/Con discussions than a genuine wish for electoral reform. AV's no PR, granted, but Labour are more comfortable keeping the status quo, sharing the government with the Tories rather than giving us all a fairer voting system.

The whole system's 'effin rigged in the favour of the 'big two' and the 'big two' are just fine & dandy if it stays that way. Forget what we think!

That would be just as well, as the Alternative Vote is not a proportional system and might be worse than First Past The Post.

Its not entirely proportional, but is much better than first past the post, because a vote for a minor party does not automatically turn into a pointless vote which then allows in the party you least prefer.

Frankly, I think that the UK will be completely stuffed if they dont get it. And of course I'm not surprised if the two major parties do all they can to stop it, i.e. will ensure that the country stays stuffed. Then the cynicism of the electorate will become overwhelming.

Jiminoz

ts not entirely proportional, but is much better than first past the post, because a vote for a minor party does not automatically turn into a pointless vote which then allows in the party you least prefer.

how was it remotely proportional?
after so long, so many elections where millions of votes were wasted, this absurd dogs-dinner of a policy was a disaster for democracy.

guide for dunces: proportional means parties winning seats according to % votes cast for them.
simple.

Is anyone truly surprised that elements of the big two parties want to maintain the political status quo? FPTP has proved to no longer provide an outright winner and more than ever a rotten system. This country badly needs reform of a very outdated system.

There are a lot of MPs with a vested interest in the status quo. Expect a lot of misinformation and skulduggery.

I'm not normally a supporter of referenda but on this occasion MPs should not vote on how they are elected. Look what happened when they set their own pay and expenses.

AV is not ideal but it establishes the principle that the first past the post system, which is thoroughly discredited, can and should be changed.

And it is hard to argue against the priniciple that all constituencies should all be roughly equal in size. Jack Straw is arguing otherwise because Labour gained a lot more seats with smaller electorates in May, and is overrepresented for its 29% of the national vote.

We need this referendum. MPs need to be told how we are going to elect them, not the other way round. I'd prefer a fully proportional system, but AV is a start. Time for those who want reform to stand up and be counted.

One problem with AV is that it is possible for the most popular candidate to be beaten by the least unpopular candidate. A resurgence of the BNP is not out of the question.

John Redwood, MP, has another gripe with it: ‘If you vote for one of the two most popular parties you only get to vote once. If you vote for a party that cannot win you effectively vote twice, as your second preference then helps decide which of the front runners has won. Why is this fair?"

Good point.

Wot ever you vote the Govenment always gets in

Lots of mainly Tory politicians squealing about the compromises involved in forming a coalition. The simple arithmatic of first-past-the-post normally leaves them having only the party's good opinion to consider for four or five years. The real compromises are made by the majority of voters who know that in their constituency there is no chance that their opinion will be represented. They have to hope their party gains enough seats elsewhere for their voice to be heard.
But this five seconds of impotence isn't democracy at all. Just like blogging isn't conversation.
Whilst most people are succesfully persuaded to engage in a consumer culture which encourages passivity in any kind of life-improving political activity, our democracy will remain a five second popular exercise. And we will get the politicians we ask for and deserve.

@harlan:

how was it remotely proportional?

Because the party that gets in is the one that is the least disliked by most of the electorate. In first past the post, the party that is most disliked by most of the electorate can get in, if the opposition is divided.

That's why the AV system is called Alternative Vote, because that is what it is.

A resurgence of the BNP is not out of the question.

Er, planetpmc, are you seriously claiming that the BNP candidate could ever be regarded as the "least unpopular"? The BNP are regarded in a pretty binary way - as the only party worth voting for by about 6% of the electorate, and as completely beyond the pale by everyone else. They'd be last or second last in terms of first choices, but they'd be more or less nobody's second choice - so far from permitting them a resurgence, AV would probably see them wiped out.

As for John Redwood - the question is not whether it is "fair"; it's mathematically provable that no voting system can possibly be absolutely fair. The question is whether it is fairer - and I think most people would aver that on a per-constituency level, it is fairer to ensure that the candidate elected has been preferred, on some level, by at least half the voters in that constituency. I also suspect that most people would prefer to rank a number of candidates than be forced to make an absolute choice of one of them; I know I would.

An addendum to my previous post: When Redwood talks about "the two most popular parties", he inadvertantly puts his finger on the nub of the problem. One of the problems in this country is that the largest parties are broad churches - frankly, far too broad, too riven with internal compromise and inconsistency, for electors to be able to make any kind of reasoned choice between them. Historically FPTP has more or less forced smaller parties to coalesce into larger ones if they wanted to make any headway; but under AV, there would be no reason for, say, the Co-operative Party to continue to stand under the Labour banner, or for the market libertarians in the Conservative Party to be forced to hold their noses and campaign with social conservatives. Individual parties could campaign on their core principles, rather than producing the identikit manifestos we saw in the election just past; individual voters could choose between parties that more accurately reflected their concerns and priorities. (I, for one, would love to be able to vote Co-op without voting Labour.)

Spot on ritalinhatesme. The most proportional system in the world is in Israel where the whole country is treated as one constituency. Any other system is some form of compromise, diluting the proportionality.

AV is only slightly more proportional tan FPTP, but it does have the virtue of keeping the member/constituency link: the more proportional you get, the less you can preserve that link. Think for instance of what size you are going to make the constituency: e.g. Inner London; Devon and Cornwall; South Wales; Yorkshire?

Nick Clegg is beginning to look like he's in an abusive relationship.

The problem here is that Nick Clegg is acting out of desperation. His party have collapsed in the polls and he needs something to re-energise his party (hence his rather banal 'which laws would you like to scrap' exercise the other day - they'll only scrap the ones they want to, hence the conditional 'best ides' term).

Unfortunately, while Nick Clegg and David Cameron clearly worked out an agreement that this would be Nick's 'baby', Nick Clegg has foolishly decided to act before there is a Labour leader in place.

Without knowing what leadership philosophy the Labour party will be working under, Nick Clegg could be endangering his whole process. What would he do, for example, if Labour and all the minority parties agreed to a PR proposal (perhaps to go alongside the AV one - that way you'd have a choice, FPTP, AV or STV)?

Quite simply, Labour is not in a position to make a statement of support (or oppose) until a leader is in place and conference is held in September. Nick Clegg knew this, but there appears to be panic setting in with the Lib Dems (who are apparently more popular amongst Tories than they are their own voters, but of course Tory voters won't be voting Lib Dem). It was a foolish, foolish thing to do, and once again the Lib Dems have put electoral reform at risk to save their own necks.

Well this is a surprise isn't it. Dodgy MP's wanting to curb our democratic right to vote? Nah, never. I really don't think its about which is the fairest system for these looney's, just that they don't want us "plebs" to get it into our heads that WE can actually have an influence on THEIR interests.

Of ballot box shenanagans, Abe Lincoln would have said;
"You can fool some of the people, ALL of the time"... ;^)
-- cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth

I support any electoral system that will hasten the destruction of the liberal democrats, a fate their bad faith and abject conduct in the coalition fully deserves. So first past the post it is and electoral death to the flinching cowards and sneering traitors. The Tories, of course, remain the lower than vermin, unapologetic, class enemy.

Will politicians ever learn they are there to serve us. We want a fairer voting system, perhaps the only solution is to sack parliament and start again. The Queen of course could do it for us!

Was it Billy Connolly who said, " You shouldn't vote for the buggers, it only encourages them ! " ?

The most inportant feature of a fully preferential system is that it reduces the number of safe seats. This might worry a large number of MPs but more marginals means a greater say for the peasants electing a wider choice of candidates.It would seem that most Tory MPs have a limited understanding of the word democracy. For example most MPs failed to gain a majority of the total votes cast in the electorate that is 50% plus one.
Indeed the None of the Above Party gained over 49% of the total vote,a true reflection of the contempt that most people hold against the corrupt institution that is the British Parliament.

Rock and hard place. Devil and deep blue sea. Frying pan and fire. You decide.

I'm wondering what the Lib-Dems hope(d) to gain from this alliance.

planetpmc

One problem with AV is that it is possible for the most popular candidate to be beaten by the least unpopular candidate.

Why is that a problem? I see it as an advantage. When no candidate, however popular to some, has an overall majority, then someone who is acceptable to an overall majority strikes me as a fairer proposition.

If you vote for a party that cannot win you effectively vote twice, as your second preference then helps decide which of the front runners has won. Why is this fair?

What's unfair about it? If my preferred candidate is a fringe candidate, then they will not win. If my preferred candidate is actually everyone's secretly preferred candidate, then they are not fringe and will be elected. That's fair. Once this system is in place, people will be free to vote for who they really support knowing their vote will be wasted. If you happen to back the winner first off, bully for you. That is also fair. But if you miss out (thinking your party is the 'popular party 'when it's not) you'd be glad of the AV, and that's fair too.

The popularity of a party is completely irrelevant to deciding a good system of electing MPs.

Shock horror! Turkeys need to be bribed to vote for Christmas and then only if it doen't affect them.

If you cant find the sick bag find a firiing squad

It will be difficult to know which way to vote on this AV wheeze. The Blue Tories don't like it, so vote for it. Ah, but the Yellow Tories do like it, so vote against it. Perhaps if we ignore them they'll both just go away.

NuLabour was very happy to join forces with the Tories to launch its bogus war in Iraq, so why is anyone surprised that it will now join forces with the Monday Club tendency to deny us voters a fair electoral system? Actually, IS anyone surprised? Jack Straw cannot spell 'fairness', never mind bring it to the rest of us.

John Redwood, MP, has another gripe with it: ‘If you vote for one of the two most popular parties you only get to vote once. If you vote for a party that cannot win you effectively vote twice, as your second preference then helps decide which of the front runners has won. Why is this fair?"

That argument makes no sense. If you want to look at AV as though it is two elections, as Mr Redwood appears to be doing, then the first election is eliminating the parties that cannot win and the second election is a run-off between the top two parties. In that case the votes of those who voted first for one of the top two candidates are also counted twice. Such a vote would be first used to ensure that their candidate was in the top two (and so not eliminated), the vote would then be used again to ensure that the candidate won in the run-off against the other 'top two' candidate. What ever way you look at it, I see no argument for unfairness along those lines.

RE AV, why is it fair that a second choice vote can have as much weight as a first choice vote?

A bit of a dilema?

If there is a referendum:

Vote for AV - the coalition and LibDems live another day but it does improve the electoral system a little bit.
Vote against AV - it could destroy the coalition and the LibDems but the electoral system stays unchanged.

LibDems or electoral system?
A bit of a dilema.

Hey, I'd vote for de-railing that political whore Clegg!

The Lib-Dems have been actively involved with dreaming up some of the cruellest cuts we've seen in decades and are propping up a government we didn't vote for who are to the right of Thatcher, and now they want the voters support? The very people they want to fling on the scrapheap? The people the Tories want to cut representation for by fiddling the boundaries to suit themselves?

Forget it, they're getting NOTHING from me - all I want at the next election is well shot of the turncoats and if it has to be with FPTP so be it.

So it's a NO for me - and the sooner this whole House of Cards collapses and there's a General Election the better

I have a very simple and cost-free solution. Abolish the whips and whipping and make sure everything is debated (that's what we pay them for) and then have a free vote.

No mention of Labour's defence of their rotten boroughs?

The executive of the 1922 committee is making elaborate plans to disrupt the referendum. Bernard Jenkin, the former frontbencher who has been appointed to negotiate with ministers, said Tories were duty bound to support the enabling legislation. But he warned that backbenchers would be prepared to table rebel amendments if ministers did not give ground on the date and raise the threshold to make it more difficult to win a yes.

Never mind the AV or no AV debate going on above - a deal is a deal & the Tories promised. Now it's YesButNoBut. If one expects anything ( hollow laughter) from the Tories it's that they should act superficially at least like gentlemen. All scumbags under the skin, we know, but hey - what happened to fair play?

This slimy slithering out of a promise is just not cricket. They should be ashamed.

Jdaven101, @ 7:22AM

Quite simply, Labour is not in a position to make a statement of support (or oppose) until a leader is in place and conference is held in September. Nick Clegg knew this, but there appears to be panic setting in with the Lib Dems (who are apparently more popular amongst Tories than they are their own voters, but of course Tory voters won't be voting Lib Dem). It was a foolish, foolish thing to do, and once again the Lib Dems have put electoral reform at risk to save their own necks.

Fair point. But isn't it equally fair to point out that a national election of 650 MPs had to be organised in far less time (Dissolution 6 April, Polling day 6 May) than the internal machinery of a single party's beauty contest requires? My own view of party leaders is they should be elected for a fixed term (not a papal one.) 'Electoral' and 'chaos' are two words which spring to mind

tenpoundpom, @7:58AM

The most inportant feature of a fully preferential system is that it reduces the number of safe seats. This might worry a large number of MPs but more marginals means a greater say for the peasants electing a wider choice of candidates.It would seem that most Tory MPs have a limited understanding of the word democracy. For example most MPs failed to gain a majority of the total votes cast in the electorate that is 50% plus one.

That's a good point in light of the 'suggestion' (above) that a supermajority (assuming less than 100% turnout) would be required to even 'pass' this measure...

Jenkin told the Guardian he would demand a high threshold, possibly modelled on the system used for the Scottish devolution referendum in 1979. A majority of voters (51.6%) supported a Scottish parliament but the referendum was annulled because the rules required a yes from at least 40% of the overall electorate.

Th words 'rank' and 'hypocrisy' spring to mind.

MP's want to vote against a fairer voting system.
Well, there's a (insert expletive) suprise.

They don't do themselves any favours politicians do they?

You mean MPs who don't believe in AV and who were elected promising not to bring AV in might campaign against AV? Bastards.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Lib Dems were always all about PR, specifically the STV. AV is not proportional, and could well bring about less proportional outcomes than FPTV. Have the Lib Dems sold out on this as well?

I've changed my mind about SAV as a result of the workings of the coalition. Since the introduction of SAV or another form of PR would produce more coalition governments, we should have more frequent repetition of the process which we witnessed this year viz: parties campaign for election on the basis of a set of policies which are then, after the voting has taken place, bartered by the elected politicians in power pacts called coalitions. Some policies prevail others don't but one thing is certain: no-one knows when they vote what it is they are voting for because all the policies are up for grabs in the post-election policy boot-sale. Anyone who claims this is somehow a fairer system must be pretty sanguine about actual political policy - as indeed the Lib/Dems have been over the years. PR is a recipe for the triumph of opportunism.

BRING ON THE REVOLUTION. That is the only way we'll get a real democracy.

Well said, ritalinhatesme (6:32 and 6:40) - you have hit the nail on the head.

The FPTP system has a negative impact on so much of our political culture. It puts too much power in the hands of parties. It stifles real debate. It compels both politicians and voters to throw in their lots with people whose views are just barely compatible except on one or two core issues. Worst of all, it has usually allowed one or other the two largest of these unwieldy groupings to govern with a minority of popular support.

Seriously, all of those people griping about the consequences of coalition government - howls Lib Dem 'betrayal' and the like - should pause and consider that the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem parties are all effectively coalitions already, in everything but name.

That's why the Tories are always tearing themselves apart over Europe, Labour have anguished fights among themselves over the right balance between 'equality of opportunity' and 'equality of outcome', while the Lib Dems struggle to reconcile economic liberalism and social democracy.

These parties are marriages of convenience thrown together by FPTP. It is time we put a stop to it. The referendum is our first opportunity.

After all, if Jack Straw doesn't like the idea, it can't be all bad, eh?

I thought the idea was to reform parliament. There are TWO houses, one of which is not elected at all and has traditionally been used as a blocking mechanism.
So:
STV to elect constituency MPs, who perform a useful function representing constituents and their locality.
Proportional representation on a national basis for the upper house, to give smaller parties a voice and to represent the overall number of national votes.

@ worldsocialist

They administrate our misfortune...Capitalism.

What, with government spending having increased at record rates over the past 13 years, as well with it tax increases (as well as debt levels) and government accounting for more than half the GDP of this country, what planet are you living on?

The past 13 years are a damning indictment of socialism and it's close cousin corporatism. It fails in just the same way that free-market capitalists always predicted it would.

@Lesney

YES!!!

Anyone who thinks the HoL is 'apolitical' just needs to remember the fact of who appoints them.

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with giving people a say over both houses. If the Australians can do it, then so can we.

Whatever we do vote against FPTP
Then campaign for full political and electoral reform.

This 'reform' is a gimmick. I want a PR HoL, with a FPTP system for constituencies and open primaries.

The referendum will do nothing to make politicians more accountable to and representative of their electorate and it's views (Iraq, Afghan war, EU, immigration, political correctness, multi-culturalism to name but a few areas where there are huge disconnects between what people want versus our political class).

Anything that threatens the ruling elite but may benefit the little people is bad. They are out of line enough already, this could only add to their insubordination.

It would be nice to see a list of those MPs that oppose it so it is public, they can then be marked as enemies of democracy and their true intentions for 'public service' would then be very clear i.e. benefiting them and their mates.

Maybe put withdrawing the vote for anyone but male landowners with more than a million pounds in the bank up for a vote and watch them all clamour to get through the yes gate.

Be careful some may be killed in the rush.