The final AV referendum broadcasts are set to go out tonight and tomorrow. Yes have chosen to explain their “miserable little compromise” of a system through a beer vs coffee analogy. But how does such a simplistic attempt to demonstrate a messy and anti-democratic system fit with the rest of the campaign?
From the start there have been some outrageous, grand, sweeping statements about what AV could do and what this referendum means. I heard this was meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the way we elect our politicians.
I heard from Yes that AV that it will make our MPs work harder and longer and stop them being crooks.
Apparently this is our only chance to ever reform the system, yet also a stepping stone to something else.
I heard that AV would mean that my vote counted and I would get what I wanted. But it turns out their final message is that AV can barely organise a piss-up in a brewery.
Given that the suffragettes, Reforms Acts and even the enfranchising of the working class and the Catholics have been invoked as comparisons of significance to Thursday’s vote, this is a massive change of tune.
We even had dog-whistle attempts to conflate the fact that that Nelson Mandela didn’t like First Past the Post when a new South African democracy was set up, so anyone who votes No must be pro-apartheid.
So what happened to the blue sky hyperbolic nonsense? Did they take a look at the polls and realise they were being laughed at. Apparently it's all about beers now. (Young people like beer right?)
Frankly those lofty historical comparisons were as intellectually insulting as they were laughable, so the change in tune is appreciated. However it’s clearly going to the wire over at the Yes HQ. Their final broadcast shows they are in a state of panic, disorganisation and lacking a clear and coherent message. Not a good place to be with just a few hours to go until the polls open.
It looks like there are going to be a lot of long faces on Friday night with the Lib Dems, the Electoral Reform Society, Ed Miliband, all the lefty bloggers, Jessica Asato, Blue State Digital (who did the Yes online campaign) and even little Eddie Izzard staking their reputations on the “a miserable little compromise”.
Oh and by the way, pretty much every pub I’ve ever been to serves coffee.
See Yes to Fairer Votes latest referendum broadcast here:
Comments
Andrew Emmerson / May 03 2011 4:48pm
"Miserable Little Compromise" was never used to describe AV.
Why such lazy journalism, a quick google search would tell you such rudimentary fact
Faceless Bureaucrat / May 03 2011 5:28pm
@ Andrew Emmerson
Still a good description though, whoever coined it.
FB
opinicus / May 03 2011 6:23pm
@Andrew Emerson
Another Yes fabrication of history
I did a quick Google search and there is the interview in which he said it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/i-want-to-push-this-all-the-way-declares-clegg-1950668.html
Tim H / May 03 2011 6:34pm
Haven't seen the Yes campaign's suggestions that anyone who votes no must be pro-apartheid. Would be very grateful if you could provide a link to substantiate this.
Another couple of points: the "stepping stone" and "once-in-a-generation" arguments are not contradictory. The point is obviously that (a) we can go further once the next "once-in-a-generation" opportunity comes around; (b) that voting "no" will simply slam this door shut, so the next opportunity won't come around - or will come around much later rather than sooner.
The beer/coffee analogy. I don't really understand the hostility. The point was to demonstrate: (a) that the principle is used in everyday situations; (b) that you can easily end up with situations no-one wants under FPTP. Very, very simple, very, very obvious.
P.W. / May 03 2011 6:58pm
Well, since everyone is so fond of analogies, let's try a new and I guess quite apposite one - that of a marriage proposal. At the moment the only answers candidates for the House of Commons receive to their proposal are in effect "Yes! Darling, this is the happiest day of my life!" and "No! Never come near me again!" A.V. effectively introduces a "yes but", in which the suitor/candidate can be told anything from "My ex was kinder/wealthier/more sensitive/a better lover/had a better policy on banking reform, but as they are unavailable I will go with you anyway", through to "Ok! Stop waving that gun/knife/B.N.P. candidate around. I'll do what you want." In all cases you can say that you have permission to take your intended down the aisle, but only one of those answers has any chance of future happiness and mutual support. Given that most predictions suggest that, by and large, current voting patterns probably won't change hugely compared to the distribution of 1st choice preferences under A.V., with most winning candidates 30-40% of active, wholehearted support in the form of 1st choice votes, should a winning candidate really be able to claim that 2nd, 3rd, 4th, even 5th choice votes the yes buts truly add up to a proper democratic mandate from more than 50% of the electorate?
Andrew Miller / May 03 2011 6:59pm
I have never ever organised a trip to a coffee house or a pub like this. AV is not a sensible to solution to any issue perceived or not within our country and this is just a bizarre broadcast.
P.W. / May 03 2011 7:10pm
On the subject of the true weight of the A.V. democratic mandate, it does seem that there is a serious dose of doublethink at the heart of the A.V. concept that is necessary for the system to work; for each preference is necessarily counted equally and unequally at different points in the process. Essentially, A.V. institutionalises the concept that one expression of support is worth more than another, and then ignores it. All 1st choice votes are, naturally, automatically equal for the first round. However, in order to accurately assess the destination of votes that need to be transferred from eliminated candidates, quite logically, the worth of each vote is then necessarily weighted once more in accordance with the 2, 3, 4, etc. rating that it has been assigned by the voter. Now successfully reattached to the desired remaining candidates, these preferences, whatever their ranking, are then assigned the same essential weight as a 1st choice in the next count. The process then continues until a clear winner emerges with in excess of the magical 50% mark and said winner claims his or her proportion of votes from the final round as their unequivocal democratic mandate, whatever the ratings might have been on half or more of them.
Ken Hall / May 03 2011 7:34pm
Contradictions, incoherence, lies and desperation bordering on lunacy. The Yes to AV campaign started falling apart as soon as the No campaign opened up a 16 point lead in the opinion polls.
When they start threatening their opponents with frivolous and unlawful lawsuits, and start tweeting that the people of the UK are "STUPID"[sic] and compare electing our honourable representatives in one of the greatest democracies on earth, to a decision about buying a beer?
They have lost the plot.
P.W. / May 03 2011 7:47pm
Just as a point of irony, I wish someone would point out to the Yes Campaign that yes, First Past The Post is a product of the nineteenth century. However, their "solution for the digital age" was first proposed in 1871 which was last time anyone looked anyway twenty-nine years before the end of that self-same nineteenth century. Queen Victoria sat upon the throne; those great leviathans of British politics, Gladstone and Disraeli were slugging it out over the Dispatch Boxes; the Labour Party in its earliest form would not exist for another twenty-two years; women, and even 40% of men were still denied the vote; electricity had yet to achieve serious domestic use and Churchill would not be born for another three years. That was the era A.V. was designed for. Little wonder that Churchill felt that he could pontificate upon the subject with a more than just a small measure of relevance: whether or not one chooses to agree with his redoubtable and eminently quotable rhetorical flourishes, he was talking about an idea that was already sixty years old when he made that famous denunciation of it in 1931.
Ian Olliffe / May 03 2011 8:44pm
So the 6 who wanted to go to the pub got to choose again. The 4 who wanted coffee only get 1 choice.
What if the 4 who wanted coffee really hates the pub that was selected? What if those 4 would rather have gone to coffee, but if not coffee another pub than was chosen.
Oh sorry I forgot, this new fairer system says that if you vote is part of the largest group then tough you only get 1 chance. All others get 2 chances.
I think the yes 2 AV need to look up fair in the dictionary
Ian
P.W. / May 03 2011 10:46pm
Looking at the Yes Campaign website, the do seem to attack F.P.T.P. for not providing a stronger guard against extremist parties. This is an intriguing claim. Now, since A.V. is an electoral system and is therefore blind to the values and policies of parties this must mean that something happens to all small parties under A.V. Sure enough, they claim that by raising the bar and requiring 50 % of the vote A.V. will provide a superior safeguard against extremism, srangely without mentioning that, if true, this will necessarily hit smaller parties too. It must be said that the Saunders projections for the last election, had it been had it been fought under A.V. do not suggest that this vision of a squeeze on smaller parties is correct (both the actual F.P.T.P. result and the A.V. projection give the three big national parties 620 of 650 seats, just with a different mix). However, it is just a projection and could be wrong, and the ease or otherwise of getting 50%, even on the back of secondary and tertiary preferences is an interesting one.
As a concept then, it's not overly appealing, particularly for the safe-seat supporter of a minor party (and safe seats will very much still exist under A.V.). Express your support for your favoured party by giving them your first choice, but since they're not going to get in you can feel that you are a part of things by putting another of your options next to the proper candidate who will win. Oh, and incidentally, even if they are your 5th or 6th choice, they will still be able to claim your support as strongly as if they were your first...
Are we looking at electoral Fordism - You can vote for any colour you want as long as it's Red Yellow or Blue?
Ken Hall / May 04 2011 6:07am
Correct PW.
One of the most foolish (amongst many) claims made by the "yes" camp is that AV will harm the likes of the BNP and other extremist fringe parties, but will help the fringe Green party and allow supporters of smaller legitimate parties more say and representation.
If that is not self-contradictory nonsense, I don't know what is!
Grumpy Old Man / May 04 2011 6:27am
"Miserable little compromise", may not be a quotation, but is certainly a statement of opinion, and is arguably a statement of fact.
Scary Biscuits / May 04 2011 8:43am
If the coffeeshop is Conservatism and the pub is three types of socialism, then socialism will generally win because they have biassed the question from the outset.
A better example would have been the same group choosing what film to see at a multiplex cinema. The trouble is that would have illustrated what a bad system it is for making a decision. You'd end up with a film that only a minority was really interested in seeing and those that voted for a blockbuster as their first preference would have less influence because their votes wouldn't count after the first round.
Cameron Elliot / May 04 2011 8:53am
Andrew Miller: You really miss the point here don't you? This isn't about coffee or beer, it's merely using a simple analogy to demonstrate a principle. And just in case you still don't understand: those people in the broadcast - well they're actors, and some of them may not even be thirsty.
Paul / May 04 2011 8:54am
oh not you aswell saying no for no apparent reason.
As analogies go it's much better than the kid at sports day one from NO which made no sense at all and could have even promoted AV, and was a good measured response to being told it will kill babies.
Yes, they have engaged in a bit of hyperbole previously but I congratulate them for being straightforward now even if the hour is late.
Yet the No campaign are still on with all the lies about cost or one-person-one-vote or we're too dumb to understand.
Problem is, if the NO win it is due to misinformation so does prove the latter point.
Steve Horgan / May 04 2011 10:09am
This illustrates the problem with the Yes campaign. They shouldn't be having to explain how the system works at this stage, and the comparison in bogus anyway as there was an underlying choice of 2 options: pub or coffee.
From a mechanical point of view the Yes campaign has been unfocussed and hasn't articulated some of the clear positives of their proposal.
Paul / May 04 2011 1:25pm
Um but what if two of the original pub people's second choice was to go for a coffee rather than some other dive of a pub?