One should never be too prissy about political campaigns. But even when the usual
excuses about the “rough and tumble of politics” have been trotted out, the argument about AV has been so dire it would have embarrassed an unusually truculent toddler.
David Cameron elevated Sayeeda Warsi to the peerage and gave her in a seat in Cabinet even though she could not win a free election in Dewsbury on her own. This representative of unelected and unaccountable power always seemed an unlikely figure to lecture the public on democratic virtue, and so it has proved. Her claim that AV would help the BNP and other extremist parties has been the stupidest of the campaign to date. AV cannot help small parties because it is not a proportional system, which is why I and other believers in constitutional reform have so many doubts about it. (We are not that bothered about the BNP, by the way. We have enough faith in the good sense of our fellow citizens to know that we can thrash a semi-criminal gang of neo-Nazis under any electoral system you care to name.)
But then the Yes campaign has hardly been honest. It says that it is fighting for “fair votes”. But fairness implies a Parliament that is more representative of the votes cast in elections, and AV cannot deliver such a Parliament because, as I said, it is not a proportional system.
My greatest worry about it is that when one of the two main parties is unpopular – as Labour was in the 1980s or the Tories were in the 1990s – AV will deliver even bigger landslides to the winner than first past the post does. Unpopular leaders such as Foot, Kinnock, Major and Hague will not get second preferences. As the late Lord Jenkins said in his royal commission on constitutional reform of Blair’s thrashing of Major:
‘A ‘best guess’ projection of the shape of the current Parliament under AV suggests on one highly reputable estimate the following outcome with the actual FPTP figures given in brackets after the projected figures: Labour 452 (419), Conservative 96 (165), Liberal Democrats 82 (46), others 29 (29). The overall Labour majority could thus have risen from 169 to 245.’
I don’t like landslides. I didn’t like them when they gave impregnable majorities to Thatcher or when they gave equally huge majorities to Blair. I want my leaders to be nervous and insecure because I believe that they govern better when they are afraid. The thought of AV delivering even larger majorities persuaded me to vote “No”.
I have changed my mind because I have concluded that the world of Thatcher and Blair has gone for good. The best point the Yes campaign make is that the two party system is over. In the 1950s Conservatives and Labour commanded 96 per cent of the vote and 99 per cent of the seats. At the last election, they attracted 65 per cent of the vote.
Now as I am sure you realise this is an argument for a proportional system, which works well in Scotland, London and Wales, not for AV. Equally, however, it is an argument against my fears of AV exacerbating landslides. In these circumstances, I think that AV’s promise that it will force winners to campaign harder is worth having.
So, angry at the limited choice on offer, and agreeing with Nick Clegg that AV is a “miserable little compromise,” I will nevertheless go to my deserted polling station and put a cross on my doubtless wasted ballot by the box that says “Yes”.
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