I am in favour of a system which is fairer in terms of everyone's vote being represented. I don't think that AV is that system and I think that's why the Tories have allowed a referendum on it.

Nothing wrong with the current system. Although we may need to look at ways of encouraging people to vote.

Hi Xochi  to be honest I have not thought a lot about it and what the implications could be, I am  apt to sway more on the side to leave things as they are .. sorry I am not much help

I think it's a good idea yes. 

the current system  has the benfit of being  quick and decisive for the most part, it  is also a  very unfair system that  fails to  ensure that all votes have the same value.

 av isn't  proportional reprsentation  but maybe a first step on the way to that.

I think over 60% people abstained in Barnsley so we have no way of knowing their second preference.

If it is under six months away surely someone ought to be explaining it in laymans terms to the voting public? I honestly don't know very much about it TBH. I suppose I'll do some swotting up nearer the time but that's just me. How (and when) will it be presented to the voters in a straightforward/clear and unbiased way.

I may be shot down for this but for the first time ever I am considering never voting again..

I don't like this new fad for Career politicians who never did proper '.work' or lived in the real world... and I honestly can't see any difference in any of the party's now. . they all, more or less. have the same agendas  but just go about things differently.. so how they get there doesn't mean owt to me cos I don't feel it makes a differnece..

I think whoever got in this time would have made cuts.. it had to be done one way or the other anyway..  this lot have made them all up front and my feeling about that isit is  because they hope if they get it out of the way in the first yr or so they can stop the major cuts for the last few yrs prior to the next election in the hope people will have forgotten. .the other lot may have made the cuts over a longer period of time but I bet my last penny they would have made them too...

I am a bit of a political philistine tho so my views may be based on total rubbish but tis how I feel about the whole lot lately.. am just sick of it all.  .

Also non of the leaders of the party's seem to have chins and all have smarmy smiles and all do the fake hand movements when they talk.. and that is another reason I won't vote.. but that is a pretty lame reason I know. .

 [I HATE THE HAND MOVING THING WITH A PASSION.. AND THE PERSON THAT INVENTED IT AS A SPEECH OR REPORTING AID IS A TWAT.. IT'S NOT NATURAL. UNLESS YOU ALREADY TALKED WITH HAND MOVEMENTS.. DON'T FORCE IT!!  :mad;]

and yeah I did shout that in my head as I typed

*goes to lie down *

hahahahahaha!

I love you Olls!  

(and agree btw) 


We want a PM with a chin!  We want a PM with a chin!  We want a PM with a chin!

labour said they would have made cuts - but it is where they would which is different to the bunch of tossers we have at the moment,

the positive with AV is that every vote would count, however i think it could become very tactical, i prefer PR because there are too many different constituencies with more/less voters

Agree totally. 

I don't think most of us know enough about it to make an informed choice....i know I don't.

Joins Ditty's 'Give Us a Chin' Party

Me neither..  I've read bits here and there but forgotten what it was I read..tho I recall it seemed a tad confusing and unrealistic..

my views are probably rubbish anyway cos I am a political philistine. .

Campaigns for the GUAC party

Love your post Olly and agree with you. 
I can't imagine many of us understand the implications ~ certainly not me ~ so if they expect us to vote on it they should start now to inform us.....but they won't. 
I've been interested in politics all my life but the current breed of politician turns me right off.
When they want our vote they make promises they have no intention of keeping ~ I hate that more than anything.   I really can't see how AV will change things that much.  Its the calibre of politicians we need to change.
Sorry for the rant, I promised myself I'd be good.

First Past the Post is far from ideal in that a very small portion of the electorate in marginal seats decide how the election turns.  Where I am, my vote has always been 'wasted' as the constituency always returns a Tory with a large majority.  The constituency Tory MP is a waste of space who's got the job for as long as he wants it.  It's said that an election can turn on the voting intentions of little over 200,000 people in key marginals, so most people's votes are wasted.

AV is certainly not the answer and studies show that it would have given Tony Blair an even larger majority in 1997 than he received. 

AV would hit the Tories the hardest and favour the Lib Dems the most. 

However AV not being passed would almost certainly break the coalition.  So it will be an anti-AV vote for me.

AV it is then for me. job done.

I agree with Machel cuts had to be made but would have liked to have seen them done fairly and over a longer period of time not with such haste which could be damaging for the country,every proposal they have come up with to to date over the changes and cuts they have not thought it through or explained it properly, even the media seems to have no clue what is going on when they are asked to explain whatever they quite simply cant get past the waffle and are left looking red faced

I don't like "first-past-the-post" very much.
I think there are better and fairer systems.

We have the Scottish Parliament elections this May and we   vote  twice .I just know that the Lib Dems will take a hammering no matter what.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2840087.stm

In any system, be it PR or AV...you are not forced to state your second preference at all. You can just tick your preferred candidate.....if you actually have one that is

I don't think it makes much difference, all it might achieveis  to have a hung parliament every time there is an election. To make things fairer, it might be an idea to change the boundaries to make them something resembling equality.Just a thought.

Hmmn boundaries usually get moved to suit the incumbants at no 10.

Did you just see the SNP political party broadcast? Was quite funny really. Don't know if it'll sway the voters though.

For those among us who didn't....it was a parody of the 'What did the Romans ever do for us' Monty Python sketch.

Well unless it's explained to me clearly -I'll continue to do that.

As for the referendum I'd really like to know the pros and cons with no spin so that I can make an informed decision.

Ah  jeez! My late old granda called the SNP.."Tartan Tories" I think that still stands.I'll never vote for them..

There's lots of stuff online to get to know about it.

katty, we call the SNP Tartan Tories too. I had high hopes but they havent came across too well, to say the least. As for the May Elections, i cant see the Lib Dems doing well. The Scottish Election will give a clear message. i think , that their policies are not going to work here

Oh yes Skylark...Lib Dem armaggedon! No one up here votes Tory anyhoo...well some in Edinburgh and Perth maybe..

I did....once!



That was at the start of the Thatcher years, She hid her autocratic nature well at first.

Have just read some of it online and am still no nearer I need laymans terms.

I'm really surprised to hear that. I was a member of the SNP while in Scotland and they were as far removed from the tories as any party could be. I could never be party to anything resembling the tories.

The Alternative Vote system explained in words of one syllable

This isn’t an attempt to plug AV, nor to speculate on what would happen under it, but just to knock down the notion that it’s fiendishly complex.

How to vote
Anne, Bob, Claire, Doug and Eve all want you to vote for them. So who do you like the most? Pick one (Bob, say) and put a ‘1’ next to their name: that’s your first choice. Then, pick which of the rest of them you’d like the most if Bob were out of the race (Eve, say) and put a ‘2’ next to their name. Then, pick which of the rest you’d like the most if Bob and Eve were out of the race – and so on.

You can go all the way and put ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘4’ and ‘5’ next to each name, or you can stop at the point where you don’t have a view on which of the rest is best. You can just put ‘1’ and leave at it that, if you don’t care for the rest of them at all. Then you’re done.

How to count the votes to see who wins
We put all the votes that mark Anne as the first choice in a pile. And then the ones for Bob and Claire and so on. If one of them has more than half the votes, they win.

If not, then the one placed last (say it’s Bob) gets knocked out and we move to round two. Round two, at root, asks: ‘Who do you like the most out of Anne, Claire, Doug and Eve?’

We look at all the votes from Bob’s pile to see who’s the next choice on each. If you marked Bob ‘1’ and left it at that, then you’ve said you have no view on the rest of them, so your vote gets put to the side. If you marked, say, Eve ‘2’, your vote goes on her pile. We move all the Bob votes that do have a ‘2’ marked to the piles for Anne, Claire, Doug or Eve. The votes these four had from round one still count this time, of course: those who cast them still have the same first choice in a race with no Bob.

And if one of them has more than half the votes, they win.

If not, we do the same thing: say Anne is last this time. She gets knocked out and for round three the votes in her pile get moved to Bob’s, Claire’s and Eve’s piles, as marked. And if one of these three has more than half the votes, they win. If not, we knock out the one placed last and go to round four, in the same way. When we get to the point where one of them has more than half the votes, they win. And that’s that.

Sorry, "in words of one syllable" is the headline, no reflection on anything or anybody.

Better explained than the stuff i read. So if we like anne and vote for her, and dont want bob to win we can vote for one of the others so bob doesnt win.

The best way IMO would be to vote which party we want to run the country, and who we want in our local constituency.

I took part in a proportional representation type vote for the leadership of the Labour Party. First past the post was Dave Milliband. Luckily after all the rounds my choice Eddie Milliband won. However there is no doubt that it was fair because Dave, Diane, and Andy also retain much influence and Ed Balls even more so. (more world class sarcasm/irony for you and yours)

thank you that is really useful and I will read it back tomorrow when my head is a bit clearer.

My point is though - why should we have to search out the information? Why should it be confined to only those who have access to the internet? If it's to go to a referendum shouldn't it be made clear in black and white to all eligible voters? And what's more to the point - who will give  and and distribute an unbiased and fair account in order for us to make up our minds.

I'm so glad I sparked off this discussion. Fantastic responses all and thank you all for that.  

I see my confusion about is common and we have so little time to decide about it. 

Thanks Col. A lot. Your Dummys guide to AV didn't help a jot!  

And Soozy, yes. That's exactly my problem too. It's coming on so fast and I'm not understanding it all a bit. I'm only concerned about this because I've read and watched TV about this. They'll be courting our votes for the council elections and probably randomly throw in the AV referendum bit. So those who even bother to vote in council elections are unlikely to know this is even happening at all. It makes this referendum as unrepresentative as any we've had in this country.

Pros seem to be saying that it will be fairer and all votes will/can count. They like the fact that candidates will try to encourage other voters to put them as their second or third preference, instead of sticking to party political themes.

Antis are saying that second, or third preference votes can make those who actually came second, on first preference votes, come first. They also claim that candidates will not stick to what they believe in, but will be soliciting for the second and third preference votes.