I have a piqued interest in the referendum in the UK on May 5, but mainly because of what appears to be a "No" campaign based around half-truths and 3/4 lies.
Consider this advert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E19pmc-Jhpo&feature=player_detailpage
I think it's curious that the purple votes get transferred to only three of the remaining four candidates. Surely the only way this would happen is if the fifth candidate was of a completely different ideology to the first candidate.
At any rate, the graphic still shows that the winning second candidate still ended up with 50% of the vote; therefore was still the choice of at least 50% of the voters.
There is a slightly odd thing about this as well. Although this advert has tried to demonise BNP voters, it still doesn't manage to negate the fact that they are in fact part of the electorate. What would happen for instance if the first or second canidate was a so-called "extremist"? Does that also invalidate this theory?
I find it intriguing that for the entire of the No2AV Campaign's videos, this delightful message appears: "Adding comments has been disabled for this video."
Does this mean to say that people not having a say and adding to the discussion is now more democratic? I'm afraid I don't understand that one myself.
David Gower's comments are also equally bizarre:
http://www.youtube.com/user/officialNO2AV#p/u/12/1ivpx21rmNM
Mr Gower, I would like to point out the obvious that in a game of cricket, there are only two sides. The side that wins is the team with the most runs. You don't have five or six teams all competing in a match; therefore your little analogy breaks down instantly.
The Alternative Voting system is akin to instant run off voting. If you were to do a comparison with the game of cricket, then the closest analogy (which is also highly faulty) would be something like the knockout stages of the world cup, where the winners go onto the next round. The Alternative Voting system acts as a paper implementation of an instant run-off voting system. No-one seems to have in Ireland in using the instant run-off voting system for electing the President of Ireland, and even more bizarre is that it is also employed to elect hereditary peers for the British House of Lords.
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-information-office/holnotice20100601.pdf
I find it strange that in particular Baroness Sayeeda Warsi who was appointed to the House of Lords and therefore was not elected herself, leads the No Campaign when the House of Lords uses this system to appoint other Lords.
Again this supposed figure which has been pulled out of seemingly nowhere that 60% of Australians don't want the AV system has been wheeled out again. Where did this come from? I haven't seen any Newspoll, Galaxy Poll or AC Neilsen poll which verifies this at all. I suspect that it has been made up, invented, and that it is a lie or a fib.
I'd like to also add the tongue-in-cheek jibe that there already is an extremist party that was voted into power at the last election that got less than 50% of the vote, namely the Conservative Party.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has consistently been the voice of No2AV and has said on a number of occasions that the British public will not understand the system. Does she mean to say that she considers the Great British public as being too stupid to understand the system? I wouldn't put that past her. One thing I haven't heard of is a proposal for a referendum to reform the House of Lords. If the Lords were elected who knows what sort of riff-raff would be voted into power?
We certainly wouldn't want a more democratic process now would we?
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