Alternative Vote (AV) Yes or No?

[SimonMac]

It's AV not PR, huge difference.

Maybe people are too thick.

yes but I mentioned PR, maybe people are to thick to read the whole thread

[stek]

It's AV not PR, huge difference.

Maybe people are too thick.

Oy! It was SimonMac who mentioned PR first!

I was just jumping on the PR bandwagon, but I do think kittens are lovely.

[Mich the Tester]

Hard to know who to believe but I'm voting no on the assumption that AV would give us more Hung parliaments.

Also, I look at the people who support AV and It's the usual suspects; Fry, Izzard et al.

Also, the Vote No campaign's political broadcast featured Rik Mayall as Alan B'stard. That alone got my vote.

Hung parliaments are not necessarily a problem when they lead to two essentially reasonable parties forming a coalition, as is the case with the current British system. The problem comes when the unreasonable extremists have enough seats to hold the balance of power; that's what AV and PR can lead to. The centre dies out and is replaced with splinter parties and single issue parties.

If AV or PR go ahead it won't be Nick Clegg celebrating after the next election; it'll be Nick Griffin.

[gingerjedi]

yes but I mentioned PR, maybe people are to thick to read the while thread

PR is the way forward but there is split in the pro PR camp as to whether voting yes to AV will help the cause or set it back.

Whichever way it goes I see the current coalition being stretched at the seams with the fallout.

[gingerjedi]

Hung parliaments are not necessarily a problem when they lead to two essentially reasonable parties forming a coalition, as is the case with the current British system. The problem comes when the unreasonable extremists have enough seats to hold the balance of power; that's what AV and PR can lead to. The centre dies out and is replaced with splinter parties and single issue parties.

If AV or PR go ahead it won't be Nick Clegg celebrating after the next election; it'll be Nick Griffin.

Nick Griffin is in the NO camp.

[VectraMan]

I'll probably vote yes. There's no doubt PR is fairer, but equally no doubt PR has some problems. AV won't favour extremists (the opposite I would say), and won't make hung parliaments more likely, and will make little difference in reality. But in some cases may make the result more representative of the wishes of the people, which is kind of the point of democracy. I think it's an improvement, albeit a small one, with no real downside.

[mudskipper]

Hard to know who to believe but I'm voting no on the assumption that AV would give us more Hung parliaments.

I thought the opposite was true - AV less likely to lead to hung parliaments.

[Mich the Tester]

Nick Griffin is in the NO camp.

Because he's an idiot, happily; YES would give him a few seats at the next election.

[VectraMan]

Because he's an idiot, happily; YES would give him a few seats at the next election.

How exactly?

Interesting that everybody has a different idea on what AV would actually mean.

[pmeswani]

We have never elected Prime Ministers (its one of the reasons why I resorted to punching people in the face when ever the whined that Gordon Brown was never elected) and I don't think it would ever work. We are style on a democracy based on voting for a single party, therefore Proportional Representation is the only logical answer.

I know we haven't. That's what annoys me. We don't elect Prime Ministers, we elect parties who don't give us a choice of who we want to run the country. We are stuck with fewer options.