Here is my take on the five main reasons why the UK gave such a comprehensive thumbs down to AV, with one important lesson for the future:
- Tuition fees and trust – This is not the place to rehearse all the arguments on tuition fees. But there can be no denying that it was a significant turning point in public perceptions of Nick Clegg. Even though over 300 Tory MPs voted for higher fees, the Conservative-dominated No campaign ruthlessly exploited this as an argument against coalitions in general and Clegg in particular. While I believe the policy itself can be justified, Clegg clearly under-estimated the political cost of a U-turn, particularly in the context ofacritical referendum that needed to be won only a few months later.
- Ed Milliband and lack of leadership – Ed Milliband exacerbated the problem above by refusing to share a platform with Clegg. This left the Yes campaign without leadership, and provided an endless stream of self-reinforcing stories about the negative impact of Clegg upon the cause.Imagine, if not only Clegg and Ed Milliband, but David Milliband too, had united in the final week of the campaign, at a big rally for reform. This would have excited the media, electrified the activists and sent a clear message to Labour voters to back change. Instead, Ed Milliband’s lukewarm approachleft room for half of his MPs to U-turn on their manifesto commitment to a Yes vote, and provided an excuse for most Labour party activists to ignore the referendum altogether.I believe Milliband’s tepid approach was a huge strategic error driven by short-term tribalism, which probably means he will never become Prime Minister. The lesson of the last four decades of British politics is that Labour can only win a working majority if they move as far to the right as Tony Blair.Milliband is clearly to the left of Blair, so AV would have offered a window of opportunity to him.However, given the constituency boundary changes will partially correct the recent bias of the system towardsLabour, the Tories are now well placed for an outright majority in 2015.
- The national Yes campaign and the Lib Dems–Presumably in light of the backdrop above, the national Yes campaign appeared obsessed with separating itself from any association with Liberal Democrats. As an air war tactic, this was always doomed to failure because everybody knew where Clegg and the Lib Dems stood. But worse than that, I think it contributed to afailure of national Yes campaign staff to grasp the need to motivate, resource and galvanise local Lib Dem parties, who were best placed to make a key contribution to getting out the vote on the ground. In Camden, we eventually overcame these problems by building strong complementary local campaigns,bringing together local Lib Dems withother Yes campaigners, including those who had never been involved with political parties at all, alongside Conservative, Green and (to a limited extent) Labour activists. We were fortunate to have a core group of volunteers who were committed and worked well together. But it took a number of months to persuade the national campaign of the merits of delivering leaflets, and we there was very limited guidance or support from either the national Yes or Lib Dem campaign headquarters.Meanwhile, it seems that outside London the default position for Lib Dem activists was to fight traditional council/Scottish/Welsh election campaigns and ignore the referendum. By contrast, the No campaign did not worry about a Conservative PM providing leadership or local Conservative parties organising their local campaigns. They didn’t worry about offending Lib Dem voters with attacks on Clegg, or turning off Labour loyalists because Tories were out on the doorsteps. They knew that if they didn’t do it then nobody else would, so they got on with it.
- Lack of bold, clear messages – The literature produced by the Yes campaign was by common consent ineffectual. It looked like it was drafted by a committee that didn’t wish to tread on any toes. It is no surprise that the handful of local authorities that voted Yes have high proportions of middle class, left leaning professionals (Camden included!). Most of the leaflets seem to have been written by Guardian readers and directed at Guardian readers.The Yes campaign HQ appeared to become obsessed with a row about the BNP which I don’t expect was swinging any votes either way. Contrast this with the clear bold messages and mistruths told time and again by the No campaign. I am angry that the BBC failed to properly scrutinise and challenge the lies about voting machines. But we can hardly be surprised that these messages were reinforced by the Tory press. The Yes campaign messages had much less impact. The best leaflet I saw was produced by Labour Yes, but hardly any Camden Labour party members were delivering it!Unlike some commentators I don’t think the ‘MPs work harder’ slogan was flawed – it just wasn’t aggressive and clear enough to persuade people that a Yes vote was a way of giving the incumbent political class a good kicking.
- Fair play versus fairness – While the Yes campaignwastrying to argue that AV would be ‘fairer’, the Tories were successfully persuading people that FPTP is ‘fair play’. They said the rules of the game are simple, it’s the British way,so any change would be complex and vaguely sinister.Meanwhile, we were getting lost in debates about whether or not AV would lead to more coalitions, or was it a more or less proportional system. Of course AV was a hard sell in this regard. But I think the way the No campaign struck a chord with the electorate is the most fundamental learning point that Lib Dems need to take from this referendum…
Lesson for the future
Given the emphasis that the coalition – and in particular the Lib Dem half of it – has placed on the pursuit of that fuzzy concept of ‘fairness’ there isa broader lesson here. Your average voter in Reading or Rotherham will not judge the coalition on whether the Institute of Fiscal Studies determines that a Budget has improved the lot of the second lowest income decile relative to the third. Similarly, while the tuition fees package included progressive measures, which arguably made it fairer than the graduate tax, their complexity failed to negate concerns that we haven’t played fair with the electorate. So, if Clegg is forced to choose where he puts most of his political capital in securing policy ‘wins’ this suggests he should focus on addressing public anxiety about the NHS changes rather than the detail of House of Lords reform. More generally, if we are to connect again with voters we will have to understand better the instinct of the typical Brit on what constitutes fair play.
James King was the Lib Dem lead, Camden Yes campaign, which scored a 51% YES vote.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
"The old savage England": D.H. Lawrence visits the Stiperstones
Church Green video
Thinking of standing for election or re-election next year? Helpful questions to consider
Endometriosis and acetylation
Nonconformistradical
Henry
Daniel Walker
David Raw
46 Comments
“5 reasons the AV referendum lost”
Hmmmmm, no where in that list did i see the following reasons:
1. The British electorate really didn’t care about electoral reform.
1.1. In not caring about electoral reform the default reaction is to retain the status-quo.
1.2. In not caring about electoral reform little effort will be given to understanding the proposed change.
2. In not caring about electoral reform all the “no” campaign had to do was not have a terrible strategy.
2.1. The “no” campaign appealed to conservatives across the left/right spectrum.
3. In not caring about electoral reform the “yes” campaign absolutely needed a blinding strategy .
3.1. The “yes” campaign couldn’t find a progressive majority, and wasn’t interested in persuading small “c” conservatives.
jedibeeftrix is more insightful.
I’m sorry James, but to concentrate so much on trying to portray Miliband + the Labour Party as the reasons loses you credibility.
Losing by 70% to 30% tells you something. The electorate just didn’t care less.
If the choice had been between FPTP, AV and PR, I suspect everyone who campaigned for a yes vote in the referendum we’ve just had would have been just as vigorously campaigning against AV (and for PR). This was the underlying problem for the Yes campaign – that they were fighting for something that was a distant second-best, and possibly only as a means to getting a change to PR later. This reinforced the idea that it was all about what was best for politicians and not what was best for voters.
I’d make four observations.
1) The timing of the referendum was a big problem. Leaving aside to one minute that referendums should not be held on the same day as other elections, the whole thing was madly rushed. At times it looked like the imperative was for the Lib Dem leadership to tick a box rather than win.
2) I’m staggered at the ongoing attempts to blame Ed M. He went out at significant personal political risk and campaigned for a YES. What more do you want? He just did not feel it was enough of a matter that chimed with the public at large to make it a confidence issue. It looks like he was right. At best, he looks like a serious opposition politician who tolerates dissent.
‘Imagine, if not only Clegg and Ed Milliband, but David Milliband too, had united in the final week of the campaign, at a big rally for reform.’
Am I supposed to take this seriously?
3) On the message point, YES seemed very slow to react to the arguments about cost getting obvious traction. It may well be that the arguments were a reach, but the reaction was not there. Put another way, NO did put out a message, the YES not only failed to articulate a message, but they did not react to the NO message.
4) ‘I don’t think the ‘MPs work harder’ slogan was flawed – it just wasn’t aggressive and clear enough to persuade people that a Yes vote was a way of giving the incumbent political class a good kicking.’ Again, leave to one side the wisdom of having Lib Dem activists in an area with a Lib Dem MP going out with this message.
If anything, it was too aggressively pushed. It looked like there were no merits to the system and the argument was pinned on AV manipulating a result in a particular way. The message should have been that MPs will need a wider appeal, though of course that is not a reason to vote for AV in itself. If anything, the YES camp was naive. NO were plainly itching to put Nick Clegg on the ballot. I am at a loss as to why this was not set up as, ‘the Conservative Party don’t want it, so vote YES.’ Look at the tory websites – it is clear that the Conservative party would have ripped Cameron apart in the event of a YES, that alone should have been pushed. The ‘political class,’ is just too nebulous. Kick the Conservatives and watch them round on Cameron might be low, but it would have probably been more effective.
I think it;s much simpler.
I don’t think AV or electoral reform is as popular with the rest of the population as we Yes voters had hoped and that the centre-left voters the lib dems attract thought Vote Lib Dem get Tory. And put big rubber “NO” stamp on the coalition. As for the idea that The Conservative vote could be persuaded? There’s a clue in the name! Conservatives are you, know, conservative.
In all honesty I think Ed Miliband was offering an olive branch in the hope of uniting the centre Left. Whatever the reasons electoral reform is pretty much dead for the foreseeable future.
“Instead, Ed Milliband’s lukewarm approachleft room for half of his MPs to U-turn on their manifesto commitment to a Yes vote”
“but hardly any Camden Labour party members were delivering it!”
Firstly read theLabour manifesto, anyone who had listened to Labour figures prior to the 2010 election would know that they promised to hold a referendum, not to support it as a party. There have always been those opposed to AV (and in some cases reform in any way) in the Labour party.
As to Labour activists, myself and many others warned would this happen if the referendum was held on the same date as elections that would always be Labours primary focus. Clegg was stubborn about this and paid the price.
The final point, and the Elephant in the boardroom from my perspective, is that AV was just not felt to be an improvement. Even the ERS spelt out the problems on their website (before removing them for the campaign). Personally I do not believe in preference voting but PR…..
Steve Way – I would agree with you argument that people just did not think AV was worth it. But there is another elephant in the room that is even bigger.
There seems to be this complete and total refusal to even consider the possibility that this might be a vote for FPTP. Let me be clear, it may well be that no to AV, yes to PR is what people want – I have no evidence one way or the other. But the stark truth is that there is a possibility that some people, fully aware of the pros and cons of FPTP decided to vote to maintain the status quo. Only a possibility – but the complete refusal to even think about it is a worry.
These reasons may all have played a part but the central reason why the Yes campaign failed was because it failed to communicate a compelling reason for change.
That basic failure to understand how to communicate with the electorate meant that the field was open for the no campaign which produced two very compelling reasons NOT to change (it’s complicated and its not fair). Once that ground was ceded the yes campaign then had to spend the whole campaign talking about the no campaign’s messages (ie complaining that they were lying).
On the campaign, the problem was at the outset the Yes campaign allowed itself to be dragged onto the No campaign’s territory. There was far too much time spent responding to the No scare tactics and not enough making the key advantages of AV. That broke the first rule of political campaigns – run your own agenda.
Miliband could have made it clear that he expected Labour MPs opposed to AV to shut up, but this would have been difficult for him given that they by and large didn’t vote for him in the first place. I also think that refusing to take to the platform with Nick Clegg was simply childish – if you’re supporting a system which is more likely to produce coalitions, then he could have taken to the field and said “look, I disagree with what this guy is doing in government, but there are things where we do agree, and AV would allow us to work together on these.”
I think the campaign indicated that it might be impossible to win a voting reform referendum before the all the electorate have tried the proposed new system. The result may have been different if either 1. the referendum had been scheduled as a confirmatory referendum after the first AV general election (in a planned version of the 1975 Wilson tactic), or 2. if the question had been related to the next election alone, and a further referendum afterwards, or 3. if PR is introduced for the HoL and then exactly the same system proposed for the Commons.
i’m not sure many people are actually bothered about electoral reform it is a key issue for members of the Lib Dem party and its probably why a lot are members, but i would imagine the majority of Labour and Conservative voters really don’t care.
I can’t see any possible way you could deliver on gaining PR in any form and trying to point the finger at Labour and Ed Milliband being the cause of the lost vote is really a bit of a stretch.
It seems that a lot have convinced themselves that the lost vote was a protest against not being offered PR and not, what i suspect it is, a vote against changing the current system regardless of what is on offer.
@ Glen – “As for the idea that The Conservative vote could be persuaded? There’s a clue in the name! Conservatives are you, know, conservative.”
conservatism is nothing more than a default position that is suspicious of change unless persuaded otherwise, just as progressivism should be no more than a default position that strives for continual improvement.
there were plenty of right-wing conservatives under the UKIP banner, how did the yes campaign try to sway them?
likewise there were plenty of left-wing conservatives under the labour banner, why did “yes” pretend they didn’t exist?
@James King
If you are going to put forward a detailed argument, get you facts right. Has as been stated Labour never promised a Yes vote, they were only committed to a yes vote in parliament to legislate for a referendum, nothing else.
Mr King,
Forgive my presumption but i think your analysis is unnecessarily wordy so, if you don’t mind, permit me to re-word it for you:
1. Tuition Fees and Trust:
The public are too stupid to separate the policy issues and duplicity of an individual from the merits of two voting systems. They therefore voted against AV, not because they did not want it but because they think it indistinguishable from the interests of Nick Clegg. As we all know that we all make our decisions solely with reference to the position taken by Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats it is obvious that the public would have seen the self-serving nature of the leadership and the duplicity in the promotion of ideological policies that are not in any way related to the stated reason for coalition, i.e. the necessity for deficit reduction, and then decided that the merits of accepting AV were flawed simply because the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg wanted it.
2. Ed Milliband and Lack of Leadership:
Despite the mistrust the stupid public have for Nick Clegg he was naturally the only individual capable of offering proper leadership to the yes campaign. Therefore it is Ed Milliband’s fault for not letting him. This was motivated by tribalism which is evident in the fact that we democrats in the Liberal Democratic party voted en masse in line with our own self-interest whilst the Labour Party voted in line with their individual beliefs and against their own self-interest.
3. The National Yes Campaign and the Lib-Dems:
As we all know, Camden, is a wholly representative representative microcosm of nationally held views; so if only the national campaign had copied the Camden campaign then the Yes campaign would have won. Insisting that the referendum was held on the same day as other elections in the belief that the popularity of the Lib Dems at the time of negotiation would still hold or in all probability increase by the time of the referendum, was in no way a mistake. It is an obvious fact that the only thing stopping the voters agreeing with Liberal Democratic policy is a lack of visibility, to see us is to love us. Surely the only possible approach (given the newfound visibility of being in government) was to assume that by the time of the referendum Nick would be so loved, as would the Lib Dem party as a whole, that the Yes vote would sweep through and all that had to be worried about was turnout, the cynicism of this would surely have passed the stupid voters by. How on earth could the leadership know that this self-interested and undemocratic approach to electoral reform would backfire when the majority of the yes campaign would be otherwise engaged in fighting for their seats.
4. Lack of Bold Clear Messages:
If only we had as good a lie to tell as the no campaign and believed in our cause even a little bit, we could have been a contender. Pah, the stupid voters and their willingness to stick with a voting system they obviously hate just because of some silly fictional machines.
5. Fair play versus Fairness:
The No campaign offered to retain what the people wanted whereas the Yes campaign failed to convince the public to ditch what they wanted.
In conclusion then, Nick Clegg should accept that his credibility is shot because of his drumming up of votes for policies that he never believed in and would not honour once in power. To fix this problem he should abandon another plank of his election campaign, reform of the House of Lords, and commit himself fully to his U-turn on the privatisation of the NHS and campaign against the white paper that he signed.
Sorry, I think I may have been a little long-winded myself.
The best leaflet I saw was produced by the Conservative YES campaign.
It explianed how the system worked (in simple terms) and why it would be fairer. It didn’t make the mistake of going on about MPs expenses and making your MP work harder.
One other catastrophic mistake by the YES campaign was to take the decision not to send a FREEPOST to every household.
We should be looking at the problems caused by the Farron/Huhne position that voting Yes would stop the Tories ever having a majority Government. Leaving aside the fact it appears not to be true it a) sounded very unfair b) was guaranteed to increase turnout among Tories.
Jedibeeftrix.
I was making a general broad point about the appeal of The Conservative Party. My “there’s a clue” comment was deliberately flippant because I think it’s broadly true. The thing with UKIP is that their beef with the Conservative Party is that it isn’t conservative enough! So it fits that they wouldn’t vote for some sort of foreign un-British voting system. They are radical fogies, not radicals.At virtually every general election UKIP tell there voters to vote Conservative. Really they’re more of an ultra-con pressure group than a political party. Of course, there are Labour conservative forces and Tory reformists. It’s also a big leap for some people to vote for an electoral reform to a system that is as old as Britain’s. Maybe, the FPTP system is more highly regarded by voters than we reformist think.
But, yeah, I get your point.
http://www.liberal-vision.org/2011/05/08/the-humiliation-of-the-yes-campaign/
Much more to the point and a good read….
“Do you want to change to AV” was simply the wrong question, as the Yes Campaign had to defend AV, which was difficult with all the nonsense being talked about it.
The question should have been, “Do you want to change the electoral system?”, forcing the antis to defend FPTP, a diffcult proposition.
The Yes campaign could never gain the initiative due to the question set.
People didn’t want it.
Why complicate matters?
Who thought up the name “Alternative Vote”? It makes it sound like “somebody — probably not me — gets an extra vote”. And the No Campaign ran with that, deceitful as it was, pretending that it was an insidious scheme to give third-party voters a second or third or fourth “alternative” vote.
Call it “Instant Run-off”, and people grasp the point immediately.
The biggest number one reason that Yes lost (they may have still lost but this is a pretty big prerequisite):
They didn’t explain the system to anyone! Nobody understood it! Not sending a freepost to everyone beggars belief and the embarrassing literature I did see and had the misfortune to deliver didn’t explain anything.
Where the hell did the £4m odd go?
AV lost because it was not a convincing enough argument, all this nonsense about Labour or Nick Clegg’s unpopularity cannot hide the issue of AV being an ill fitting corset and a miserable little compromise.
It’s telling that this post was called “5 reasons the AV referendum lost.”
To add to my earlier post due to a conversation I’ve just had….
The labour supporter (and I think member) I was speaking to was going to vote yes the last time we spoke about 3 weeks prior to the referendum. She wasn’t really ardent in her support but was prepared to follow the leader of her party. She changed her mind due to the attacks on the Labour figures opposed to AV. To her mind instead of focussing on the issues the likes of John Reid et al were insulted, called dinosaurs etc. She therefore stayed at home…
I have no idea whether this was widespread or a single event. It would certainly tie in with those on here who think that attacks on the Tory Party would discourage Tory voters from voting yes. I posted several times that both campaigns were terrible, full of half truths and outright lies. There was certainly a lot of hot air thrown around at some Labour elders (and vice versa). Perhaps this is something to consider when trying to get the votes of another party in what should have been a campaign about AV and not party politics.
To a lot of the NO voters I spoke to, a common viewpoint seemed to be the self-serving nature of the referendum.
To a lot of people the only difference they could see from changing to AV is that us Lib Dems would get more seats. For this to be the issue that sees the first real disagreement of the coalition just smacks of self interest and not what’s best for the country.
I personally worry that the leadership’s newfound distaste of the NHS reform bill will also come across as self serving, a way of sticking it to the tories that embarassed us so badly.
I changed my mind to ‘NO’ after Ed Miliband said that AV was the way for the ‘Progressive Majority’ to rule forever. So bare faced politisation of a way to vote was wrong.
@Paul McKeown
“The question should have been, “Do you want to change the electoral system?”, forcing the antis to defend FPTP, a diffcult proposition”.
No – you can’t expect anyone to vote for change without stating what the new system will be! Change could have consisted of a return to the old system of some constituencies electing 2 MPs by FPTP. Or the abolition of the Boundaries Committee.
The fact that many people either don’t care or are happy with FPTP is compounded by the existence of several different electoral systems. I for one wouldn’t support an “anything but FPTP” campaign.
I would not vote for an extreme form of PR – parties should not be represented at all if they are unable to achieve a reasonable level of support, And I voted No to AV, because I don’t think the largest minority in a constituency should be overruled by the lower preferences of others. “Fairness” was irrelevant to the FPTP v AV debate since both are hopelessly unfair.
or 6) AV was rubbish
@Old Codger
“No – you can’t expect anyone to vote for change without stating what the new system will be! Change could have consisted of a return to the old system of some constituencies electing 2 MPs by FPTP. Or the abolition of the Boundaries Committee.”
That wasn’t the experience in New Zealand, which in 1992 held a referendum in two parts. The first part was simply the question “reform to a more proportional system?” without reference to any specific system. The referendum was won. The important part is to establish a clear view in the public mind whether FPTP is fair or not. The detail of which specific system to move to can come later; it is of secondary importance to the fact that reform is needed – and system specific peculiariaties are also a distraction and a target for the antis.
Without first gaining public recognition that the current system is flawed and unfair, essentially you need a revolution to implement change.
Fairness for some will always mean losers amongst those currently benefiting from systemic distortions – and those potential losers will fight tooth and nail to preserve their privilege. Make them defend their position of privilege instead and you will win the argument.
For those of us who belong to different political parties who believe passionately in the cause of Electoral Reform let us not all fall out over acrimonious debate about who did, or didn’t do what. If we do that then we let the conservative forces in society win to the detriment of “all progressives” and the 2 party system is back on the agenda. We have made too much progress to let that happen again.
I think for future campaigns we must recognise the strength of opposition to this, and how well organised it is. We must also recognise with the benefit of hindsight the date of the Referendum was wrong though originally chosen for all the right reasons at the time. Also we must recognise that the Lib Dems took a lions share of the publicity for this campaign, which should not have happened, and the ant lobby were able to manipulate the media to make it a personal campaign about Nick Clegg which it should never have been.
So the way forward and I am sorry but what I am about to say Lib Dems will not like but this is I think the only way forward, and where we go next. The anti forces feel at the moment they are safe as houses because they feel they cannot be challenged. As far as the Lib Dems are concerned that is certainly true for the lifetime of this parliament. However we will have parliamentary By Elections coming up. So I propose and I say this as a former Lib Dem, the Lib Dems should stand down their candidate for these elections. This means the Tories, and Labour will have to stand alone in the full glare of publicity as to their respective merits. Progressive forces should stand behind 1 progressive candidate. It could be an Independant, or even another political party’s candidate. The provis is they must support explicity support Electoral Reform and that is main reason they are standing in the By Election.
I will leave the debat to decide whether that Electoral Reform change should now be PR. Logic says it should be. This will clearly keep the issue of Electoral Reform on the political agenda whethhr forces of conservatism like it or not. Gues what they won’t.
Published in the Oxford Times this week:
“The dinosaurs, the wealthy and the mystified said No to the Alternative Vote (AV). The brightest and best of Oxford and Cambridge said Yes, refusing to be swayed by the dishonest, self-interested and specious arguments of the No to AV and Conservative Campaigns in favour of First Past the Post (FPTP).
The four principal voting systems are AV, FPTP, STV for greater proportionality and AV Plus with extra party list MPs to give exact proportionality between parties. For greater clarity on the distinction between AV and STV, the former should be renamed STVS – the Single Transferable Vote in Single-member constituencies – and the latter should be renamed STVM – the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-member constituencies.
Having very nearly been elected Liberal MP for Newbury in 1974, I cannot see MPs voting to abolish their single member constituencies, which scuppers STVM/STV. Party lists for party hacks are undemocratic. That leaves STVS/AV as the most practically achievable reform for representing at Westminster the true opinions of voters. Electoral reformers opposed to FPTP for Parliamentary elections should stop making STVM/STV the enemy of STVS/AV.”
From a Con supporter:
Some people seem to think the YES vote failed because AV wasnt explained properly. The opposite is true, the more people got to know about it the less they liked the idea. There are two obvious reasons for this:
a) FAIRNESS- it just isnt fair to redistribute the second prefrences of the worst losing candidate before you count the second preferences of all the other losing candidate. AV potentially meant the second preferences of some voters counted for more than the second preferences of other voters. That’s how instant run off works and the YES campaign always looked like they were dodging that obvoius flaw rather than addressing it head on.
b) OLD POLITICS – any idiiot can see AV is FPTP for a 3 horse race, ie the voters of the 2 main parties are expected to exercise 2nd preferences for the 3 party. So whilst LibDems like to portray themselves as hollier than thou, actually they came across as “same old same old” self serving politicians.
I am not proud to say that at the end of the day the LibDems were suckered into backing AV when they knew it was a flawed system and the British voters knew they knew it was a flawed sytem (becuase Clegg had already told them what his real opinion of AV was); LibDems should have stuck to their high moral principles and insisted on a referendum on a fair system or no referendum at all.
It also lost because it was simply a terrible campaign, with all that nonsense of using celebrities instead of politicians, patronising drivel about groovy young people in London using AV to choose, like, between the coffee shop, and the pub, man, and then which pub to go to…It was rubbish! Sorry, but it was. They gave no thought as to how to reach out to the broad mass of British people who hadn’t thought much about electoral reform before, don’t live in London, are older, vote Tory, etc.
@jedibeeftrix
Not sure there was a deliberate attempt to exclude conservatives with a small c. Agree that there was not a sufficient attempt to persuade people from UKIP and other parties to be part of the Yes Campaign, a point I advocated should have happened right from May 2010. I think communication across parties as opposed to largely within 1 party as with the No Campaign hampered the Yes Campaign. But please next time there is a campaign please no churlish behaviour from party leaders not wanting to stand on the same platform that’s just pathetic.
The point on tuition fees is that Conservative MPs didn’t sign pledges to vote against any increase. In any election attacking your opponents for breaking their pledges is not only a legitimate tactic but is in fact the right thing to do as it holds politicians to account.
It was the Labour half of the campaign that targeted this weakness and they did so admirably with the point that instead of putting his foot down over fees, Clegg instead demanded a referendum on AV. This was a brilliant political move and hugely relevant to the AV referendum because of the claims it would make hung parliaments and coalitions more likely. Clegg signed his own death warrant with that single oversight.
@jedibeeftrix
I’m pleased someone else has noted that many conservatives are in fact committed Labour voters. Socialism has been established in this country for over 65 years, plenty of time for those born with a conservative disposition to default to it.
@ Old Codger Chris ““Fairness” was irrelevant to the FPTP v AV debate since both are hopelessly unfair.”
This is ultimately what convinced me to vote no, I simply don’t see AV as being significantly more fair than FPTP, it introduces a new set of issues for people to question the fairness of the voting process, I did consider abstaining and possibly would have if it hadn’t been on the same day as the local elections as neither system is convincing, a change wouldn’t have had me up in arms, but I just didn’t see the point.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/55322336/Yes-to-Fairer-Votes-An-Insiders-View-published-on-Liberal-Conspiracy-http-bit-ly-lgw3Bk
Alongside peebee’s Liberal Vision link (above), I suggest James King and anybody who wants to know how incoherent and incompetent the ‘Yes’ campaign really was should read the full version of what it was like working inside the campaign.
I have long felt it was John Sharkey who failed to capitalise on Nick Clegg’s poll lead (some call it purely a bubble, but polling evidence says otherwise) after the first election debate last year. Every failure to engage with any other view but his own or of those in a tight circle he seems to dazzle seems to have been repeated, to the evident frustration at the hopelessness of it all from the campaign’s the regional staff organiser. The press campaign is not dealt with, but it was a mistake to appoint Paul Sinclair (the “professional” in question) if he couldn’t even secure a single mention in any Conservative leaning newspaper on the launch date – it was surely a foretaste of the the onslaught to come!
I would like to ask @john if he supports the link to the individual constituency MP principle staying he would have supported AV plus, or would he have seen the benefits of PR where the transfer of the vote is not to the same value of AV but sacrifice the need to keep the individual constituency MP, or would he have liked neither which meant he was a supporter of the 2 party status quo. If the latter is true I have a message for John and likeminded people from all those voters who do not support Labour and Tories. This last option is no longer acceptable to us so you better come up with a better option than FPTP because for the rest of us, and that is the majority of voters that is no longer acceptable to us. If you persist with FPTP we will successfully campaign to get rid of it.
John Smith, You are right.
“john”
a) You say that it just isn’t fair to redistribute the second preference of the “worst” losing candidate before you count the second preference of all the other losing candidates. You say that AV potentially meant that the second preferences of some voters counted for more than the second preferences of other voters. How is this avoided with PR by the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-member constituencies?
At least with both the Single Transferable Vote in Single Member Constituencies (STVS/AV) and the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-member constituencies (STVM / STV), second preferences count, unlike in FPTP. And everyone’s vote counts once and no more often than that. I would have thought that instant run off would take far too long. Wouldn’t everyone have to vote again each time a candidate was eliminated? How unrealistic is that?!
b) It is not just a 3 horse race. AV makes it easier for younger parties to come to the fore sooner, whether they are the Liberal Party, the Greens or UKIP. AV is a fairer system than FPTP. Yes, it wouild have suited the Liberals, and now the Liberal Democrats, but that is because FPTP is so wildly unproportional and has not allowed second preferences to count at all.
You appear to be gloating using one of the many specious arguments used by the No to AV and Conservative Campaigns in favour of FPTP and against AV that made me and others very angry with Cameron et al for many years to come and which will not stand the test of time and further debate and scrutiny.
The AV debate showed the serious flaws in preference voting. My third or fourth preference is never going to be more than a tactical blocking vote and not a positive endorsement.
Many of us want electoral reform so we can make a positive vote that stands a chance of counting. Party list PR (open lists in multi-member constituencies) deserves to be re-visited.
Kevin Colwill
What is wrong with a tactical blocking vote rather than a positive endorsment, if that is the way that you feel?
Multi-member constituencies are the problem, not the solution, so far as Parliamentary Constituencies are concerned, since MPs will not vote to abolish their single member constituencies.
The vote was lost because the Electoral Reform society over the years has made their best the enemy of the good, so far as Westminster elections are concerned.. It was they who gave the name “Alternative Vote” to the Single Transferable Vote in Single member consitutencies and grabbed the name “Single Transferable Vote” for the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-member constituencies.
“AV” and “STV” concealed the distinction – the only difference between the two systems – between single member versus multi-member constituencies.. STVS and STVM would have made and would make the distinction clear. STVS gives Preferential Voting in existing consituencies. STVM gives most nearly Proportional Representation, at the cost of much larger Multi-member constituencies.
Why did we hear so little of “Make All Votes Count” in the Yes Campaign? That is what the Preferential 1,2,3 Voting of both STVS and STVM does, which X voting does not. What an infuriating thought it is to have to go on casting a useless X vote in a safe Conservative or Labour seat in which the majority of electors almost always vote against the MP!
Electoral Reformers should start talking about voting by STVM for the Senate and STVS for the Commons, whatever happens in other elections round the country. STVS is all the Commons will ever vote for, but if one third of the Senate is elected every five years, the democratic legitimacy of the Commons will always be superior, because 100 per cent of them will have been elected within the last five years.
STVM and STVS please, from now on – not “STV” and “AV”.
@Dane Clouston…One of the arguments for AV was “it’s a winnable concession” – got that wrong!
I doubt if the case for real PR can be won in my lifetime but I’d rather make a case for something I actually believe in than weep crocodile tears for something that was no good in the first place.
Preference voting may make some people go all weak at the knees but it’s never impressed me. The idea of third and fourth preferences tipping the balance in a marginal just makes politics look even tackier and less principled than it looks now.
I want electoral reform to address two problems – first the issue of a party getting significant support nationally but never enough to win in any individual FPTP constituency. Second the fact that overwhelming majorities in certain constituencies mean nothing as voters are only able to elect a single representative.
In both cases votes are devalued. In the first case a voter making a principled choice for a minor party “wastes” his vote because his party of choice can’t win under FPTP. In the second case the voter adding to a huge majority “wastes” his vote because his party of choice can’t send more than one representative to reflect their huge number of votes.
I believe list based forms of PR can begin to work through these problems more directly and straightforwardly than preference voting. They do, of course, have their own flaws and I support open list systems over a closed list. There may even be a case for a primary style system of elections to secure a place on the list. All things should be up for debate rather than insisting STV is the only show in town.
@Kevin Colwill
I strongly agree. A truly “free” list system would allow voters to cast as many votes as there are seats (eg 4 votes in a four-seat constituency). If voting for 2 or more candidates on the same party list, voters could also insert their own order of preference – overriding the party’s preferred order – if they wish to do so.
Seats would be allocated between parties (and independents if they poll well enough) by the d’Hondt method. As for which candidate(s) on a list win a seat, this could be determined by the stated order of preference using a simple method such as Borda count.
Although top-up systems – whether AV Plus or the system used for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and London Assemblies – may seem attractive (hopefully with an Open, not Closed, list) I don’t think it’s fair on voters or MPs to have two classes of MP representing overlapping areas. It’s surely better if all a voter’s MPs represent his constituency with a common boundary – it’s certainly more likely to make MPs “work harder” than AV.
A further point about STV. Take a look at the Electoral Reform Society’s suggested rules for conducting an STV count – you can find them from the ERS website. I defy anyone to say that the candidate elected on (say) the tenth count indisputably deserves his seat.
“Instead, Ed Milliband’s lukewarm approachleft room for half of his MPs to U-turn on their manifesto commitment to a Yes vote”
On Ed Miliband and lack of leadership …
I think you will find that Mr Miliband is leading the Labour Party not the Liberal Democrats
and that the Labour Party although having a manifesto commitment to hold an AV Referendum has never had a manifesto commitment to AV its self. It has always been an issue on which party members are free to hold their own opinions and there has never been a Conference vote on it.
It was very hard to get any Labour MPs on any pro-AV platform at all particularly since the price of the referendum was that 50 constituencies would be outright abolished in order to make all constituencies the same size.
If you stab Labour backbenchers in the front what makes you think they’ll be going out their way to prevent you falling into the ravine…?
Actually both Mr Milibands went out of their way to help you without splitting the party but its actually not Edward’s job to cut the party’s legs off for the “better long term interests”. If the Labour Party was interested in waiting forever for real power it would be the Liberal Democrats.
Cameron did you up like a kipper. You allowed a bill to be passed that will make it even harder for you to get any MPs in future as the less Constituency parties there are the harder it is for the 3rd party to get MPs under FPTP
In a word:
DOH!