Not AVin' it?

What a curious business this AV referendum is turning out to be. Britain's first referendum in 30-odd years should be a huge deal. Unfortunately, the Great British Public's general disillusionment with politics in general combined with the relative complexity of the AV system is threatening to reduce the whole thing to a sideshow.

The ever-increasing tetchiness between the coalition partners makes it a rather entertaining one, admittedly - these kind of spirited exchanges of views are exactly what should have been happening from day one of this Government, at least from a Lib Dem point of view. But the sight of High Tories standing side by side with Labour grandees will confuse many voters, probably making them less likely to vote than they already were.

Anyone who's even thinking of voting should be compelled BY LAW to read this briefing paper which gives as fair and unbiased an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed system compared with the current FPTP thang as possible. (I'm assuming it's okay to link to this document, by the way. In the unlikely the event that (a) you're actually reading this and (b) you're aware that I'm breaking any sort of rule by doing so, then I will of course take it down.)

For something slightly less fair and unbiased, let's take a look at, ooh I dunno, maybe this No Campaign referendum broadcast? While it's nice to see Rik Mayall back again as Alan B'stard (a character who seems less and less of a satire with each passing year), the denouncing of the coalition as basically peddling a load of old cobblers is hardly going to sit well with all those Tories who number amongst the No lobby.

The assertion that AV will result in perma-hung parliaments (consequently turning manifestos into idealistic works of fiction) is of course tosh, as the document above proves - in fact AV would have swelled the governmental majority in most of the last few elections, and of course our beloved "fair" old FPTP has delivered us the present unsatisfactory Downing Street bed-share.

A quick glance through the No Men's garish green-and-purple flyer reveals plenty more scaremongering bunkum:


The money it would cost to switch to AV could instead be spent on doctors, or teachers, or nurses! Yeah, you may have noticed that the Government isn't terribly keen on spending tons of money on the education system and NHS right now. It's not really happy about spending full stop, except of course on sightseeing tours of the Arab nations for our brave armed forces boys.

"The winner should be the one that comes first"! (complete with photo of sprinters, the third placed guy captioned as the "winner")
Well yes, in a sprint it would be odd if the guy breasting the tape first was not declared the winner (Ben Johnson and his ilk aside, of course). But this isn't a race, where the participants win or lose purely on the basis of their own strength/speed/skillz. It's an election, where your destiny is in the hands of other people. Big difference.

"AV is unpopular"! (see map where the whole, non-AV using world is coloured green, apart from three Australasian AV-users in purple)
This graphic clearly implies that AV is shit because only those stupid Aussies and two random neighbours of theirs use it. The rest of the world is of course homogenous because we all use the beloved FPTP system which... hang on, what's that you say? The world's MPs are voted via a hodge-podge of wildly different systems, all with their own merits and downsides? Hmm, I wonder why the leaflet isn't telling us that?

"AV leads to broken promises"! (cue picture of a smug Nick Clegg, pre-election pledge to vote against any increase in tuition fees in hand)
Ok, I'll give you that one.

The fact remains that the whole campaign is a tidal wave of deliberate misinformation. It may not surprise you that I'll be voting yes - I don't have to be fair and unbiased, so that's okay. I'm sure the Yes campaign aren't averse to letting slip the odd white lie too, however - a quick glance at their website (confusingly using a similar purple in its branding) pulls up the argument that "few people" would be confused by AV, which I'm afraid is wishful thinking on a grand scale. They also seem to be operating on the "never mind the quality, look at the nice celebrities we've got" principle, which I'm not sure is entirely a good thing.

No voting system is perfect, and it's not going to be the end of the world if the Noes win on May 5th. It'd be nice if everyone could be free to make their own informed choice though. Somebody should do something about that. Maybe we could hold a referendum.