This is the second in our series, Why Vote Yes, where prominent Liberal Democrats explain the importance of voting Yes in May’s referendum on the UK Parliamentary voting system.
Yesterday, Charles Kennedy described A chance for change we cannot miss. Today, Paddy Ashdown writes:
Fellow Liberal Democrats – I’ve been in politics for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with people of any age getting involved, from a teenager to a centenarian. We can all make a difference.
But when almost every politician at the top of the “No” campaign was already a dinosaur by the time I was first elected to Parliament in 1983, you have to wonder about the freshness of their arguments.
Think of the changes Britain has seen during my lifetime – and theirs:
We’ve joined the European Union. We’ve established a Parliament in Scotland and an Assembly for Wales. We’ve voted in proportional representation elections for both – a far bigger change than AV – and the sky hasn’t fallen in.
And government, always the last to change under Tory and Labour alike, has often been the last to wake up to the incredible social changes that have changed Britain for the better.
So when those old Labour and Tory hacks gang up to tell you to be afraid of a long-overdue but frankly much smaller change, it tells you far more about their fears than those of the British public. Of course they’re against change. They want to hang on to the present system because it makes life easier for politicians. Well I am more interested in a system that makes life better for the voters!
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