This election will make or break Britain. It is already certain that the government that takes office after the election will face the greatest peace-time crisis we have known since the dark days of 1931… Before any government can begin to get to grips with the economic situation, it must regain the confidence and respect of the electorate.
A big tip of LDV’s hat to Rudolf Fara, co-director of Voting Power and Procedures (VPP) at the LSE (via Politics.co.uk) for pointing out the similarity.
Mr Fara, who was speaking ahead of a lecture last night by Vince Cable setting out his vision for a proportional representative electoral system, noted:
While PR was a perennial fixture of Liberal manifestos, educating the electorate in voting systems was then a subject too complex for an electoral campaign [in 1974].
“Since EU membership and elections the voters are considerably more aware of system differences. Now the choices between the voting systems advocated by the main parties are distinct: PR for the Lib-Dems, First-Past-The-Post for the Conservatives and for Labour, the Alternative Vote system,” he added.
“It’s fair to ask whether party preferences of voting system should now be an electoral issue spelled out explicitly in their respective manifestos.”
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7 Comments
I presume that ‘ahead of ahead of a lecture’ is a typo, but it’s the first time I’ve seen anyone use this dreaded phrase when they actually mean ‘before’ TWICE in a single sentence. At the risk of sounding pedantic, I’m fascinated to know why any native speaker of English prefers to use ‘ahead of’ and why so many of you are doing it, even once in a sentence – for more on which, see http://bit.ly/9N4Pq0 and http://bit.ly/aytLQe
So far my research into why the use of ‘ahead of’ is on the increase, let alone where it came from in the first place, has led nowhere, and any contributions to either of the above posts would be more than welcome.
Isn’t ‘ahead of’ used to describe something just before an event, whereas before could be at any point. So, you might say ‘ahead of’ in the way you would say ‘in the run up to’?
Just a thought – perhaps wrong!
30 years and we still don’t have STV in England. Sigh.
Still, some progress – Scotland and Ireland have it.
Sir Marcus Browning thinks we’re facing the gravest economic crisis since 1380
John – Thanks for the feedback – and I think you’re right that ‘in the run up to’ is indeed how ‘ahead of’ is mostly used. But have you ever heard anyone (other than news readers and reporters on radio and television) actually say it in a real life conversation? I haven’t (though I have heard people say ‘in the run up to’), which is, I suppose, one of the reasons why this obsession with saying ‘ahead of’ intrigues/distracts/annoys me so much. So far, the record is held by an article in ‘The Guardian’ last August, in which the author managed to use ‘ahead of’ six times in 171 words! http://bit.ly/aytLQe
How about “Just before”?
Thinking about it, “before” doesn’t mean the same at all. Ahead of and In the run-up to imply a direct link with the event, and are all part of the process / sequence of events. Before or Just before don’t necessarily show any operational link, as it were. I am afraid I use “in the run-up to”, but it is a bit of a cliche!