Tag Archives: why vote yes

Paddy Ashdown writes… Why Vote Yes: Take Courage – make change

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!

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 18 Comments

Charles Kennedy writes… Why Vote Yes – A chance for change we cannot miss

I’ve campaigned for electoral reform for as long as I can remember. I’m both President of DAGGER (Democratic Action Group for Gaining Electoral Reform) and the Liberal Democrat Group of the Electoral Reform Society, so you can imagine how I felt when I found out that we have a chance to change our outdated, broken electoral system and replace it with something better.

Let’s be clear: AV may not be perfect, but it IS better and fairer than First Past the Post. Even the ‘No2AV’ campaign know that, which is why they’ve resorted to making things up …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 10 Comments
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