The Good Thing About AV
AV or Alternative Vote is something that politicians can’t agree on.
I was tending towards saying No, but mainly for conservative reasons. Note the small cee.
However a few days ago, I was at the Angel and both sides were handing out their leaflets. On the bus home, many people were reading the leaflets and that was a surprise and a good thing. Anthony Berry would have approved. I say he would have approved as I remember he was one of three candidates who came to my school at probably a General Election in 1964. Whereas the other two candidates, brought out their parties’ lines, Berry concentrated on how voting was a right and we should always exercise it.
So when there was a meeting on AV tonight, I went along. It was a genteel meeting, with both sides putting their views eloquently and answering some intelligent questions from the floor. Wouldn’t it be so much better, if Parliament behaved better and dare I say it more independently and scientifically correct.
I think that AV will not have much effect on the two major problems of our elections; the mediocre nature of many of the candidates and the low turn out. Although with better candidates would we get a better turn out.
I asked a question about which system would bring forward better candidates, but neither side seemed to think it would make much difference!
As the debate proceeded, I came to a logical conclusion, that perhaps AV might improve the candidates in certain circumstances.
I should say that I’ve been represented by some good MPs, I’ve met a couple too, who retained their seats because they looked after their constituents. And I’d also met a couple of real political hacks, who ticked all the right boxes, but who you’d never trust.
But thinking about my last constituency, Newmarket, AV might persuade someone from the racing industry to come forward. They would not stand a chance under first-past-the-post, but under AV many in the town would place them second. So AV might mean that important single issues in a constituency, could give a good single issue candidate a chance. We might see a few more good doctors, like the one in Kidderminster.
On the other hand, single issue parties like UKIP and the BNP might benefit. Which in my view would be a bad thing!
So I think I might have changed my mind and will say Yes to AV.
On the other hand, I might spoil my paper.
The Anonymous Widower 
When I was in 6th form at school, doing my Duke of Edinburgh Gold for one part of it we had to research a topic related to a list of ideas. There were some really interesting ones, but our school said we had to choose between “Democracy in Action” or “Both sides of industry”. We were none of us ecstatic. It was 1974, hung parliament etc, and I decided very quickly that I was going to have to have pick something from one of those two I would look at PR which had been on the news a lot – I knew the hung parliament wasnt good. Note I was 16/17 and unable to vote.
I spent hours in what was then Picton LIbrary researching all these different systems of PR and AV. And found myself fascinated. And became convinced that “first past the post” was not serving Britain well.
Having been a school governor for years, I know all but one of the local MPs. One of them was involved in drawing up the coalition, and has been involved in drawing up the AV proposal. He is a very sound guy – I know his wife quite well too.
I will definitely be voting yes.
Comment by liz | May 3, 2011 |
It is a nonsense to think that it will be fairer to elect an MP because they have received >50% of the votes when many of those votes are likely to be the 3rd or 4th choices of many voters. The “lowest common denominator” has no appeal to me and could result in very undesirable effects.
In a system where there are many contituencies each returning a single MP, with more than 2 parties/candidates, then 50% is not really achievable in many areas. Add to this that a significant proportion that don’t vote, then one could say that few MPs are really representative under any FPTP or AV.
I think it is very dangerous to make a change that really has no significant benefits, but some dangerous risks.
Comment by John | May 4, 2011 |
[…] than most politicians think. In my view, judging by the way AV literature was being read on the Dalston Omnibus and the positive vote for AV in this area of London, I would not discount the latter. Possibly […]
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