A party news release brings the news:
Liberal Democrat Party President, Tim Farron has been appointed as Chair of the Liberal Democrat Yes to Fairer Votes campaign.
Commenting, Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg said:
“I am delighted that Tim will be spearheading our campaign for a Yes to Fairer Votes.
“This referendum is an historic chance to give voters more say and is something so many British people have fought so long for.
“Tim will lead an excellent campaign and I look forward to working with him.”
Commenting further, Tim Farron said:
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to change our voting system, to make our democracy fairer.
“A yes on May 5th will make MPs work harder for your vote and put an end to jobs for life in politics.
“I look forward to going out on the doorstep with my party, other parties an from all other parties and none to make this chance a reality.”
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20 Comments
Good news now we must get on with it.
Good news that’ Tim’s taken over. Does this mean John Sharkey’s been sacked? http://www.libdems.org.uk/press_releases_detail.aspx?title=John_Sharkey_appointed_as_Chair_of_the_Lib_Dems%E2%80%99_Fairer_Votes_Campaign__&pPK=083405d6-d018-45c2-b0f9-3e98dc1c96dc
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to change our voting system”
Does this mean we can forget about PR in our lifetimes?
Sorry, I’ve no idea how that apostrophe.
Stuart – I hope not, but being realistic, we’ve never really been anywhere close to getting PR. I’ll keep fighting for it though.
Well at least Tim can hardly be blamed if Yes to AV fails.
I think we all know who is destroying any hope of the AV question being given a fair wind by the public.
Sadly, not having the Party Leader campaign during elections isn’t an option and won’t be an option in two or four years hence either.
I’ll be voting NO but in the wider political sense I think it is a good idea to appoint Farron as it will allow Milliband to cooperate with the LibDems on the YES argument and for obvious reasons he could never do this with Clegg.
So I still hope the NO vote wins because AV is a crock of sh*t and will actually delay or halt the move to actual PR. I also have no problem in saying that I was also voting NO because quite simply I wouldn’t want him to be able to claim another ‘success’.
However in view of the principled conference decision over the NHS I actually see some hope that the LibDems might survive as a party with its own policies and not become a Tory adjunct or clone. So it’s important that people of principle in both Labour and LibDems can work on matters of common ground and interest and the NHS is most certainly in that category.
EcoJon – what move to actual PR? Labour promised a referendum on some form of PR for 13 years and never did it, the PLP contains a lot of people who will fight to the death to stop it. To the Conservative ranks the thought of PR is even more objectionable. So how do you see us moving forward if not this way?
AV is STV with single member seats, if we can get this through then we’re part way to what most of us (Lib Dems) want. The next argument is to make it proportional with multi-member seats. I’m not massively hopeful that we’ll get that especially soon (we’ve been campaigning for this for decades and this is the closest we’ve ever got).
@Eco Jon – ‘AV will actually delay or halt the move to actual PR’? Delay or halt what ‘move’ exactly? If the Tories are anti-reform and a significant section of Labour aren’t keen on even AV, then why the hell would they suddenly go for PR anytime soon?
@ EcoJon
“So I still hope the NO vote wins because AV is a crock of sh*t and will actually delay or halt the move to actual PR.”
While a vote against any change to our rotten FPTP system would be a real launchpad for a future vote on PR. Not.
Your partisan interest is just so obvious it hurts. Face facts, you don’t want PR or otherwise you wouldn’t support Labour, who despite being in government 13 years did NOTHING. Another broken Labour promise based on the fact that PR would mean Labour couldn’t grab total power with only 35% of the vote like they did in 2005.
The most significant h ting about this announcement is the boost it will give to TF’s national profile, particularly if we win AV as I expect. He will also get the chance to get to know Milliband better and to learn to work with him.
If Clegg tires of the fray and steps down, he will be a shoo-in as Leader on a Social Liberal ticket. Then what will happen, I wonder?
I’ve already received a Yes to AV leaflet from the Lib Dems and was very surprised to see that the person putting forward the argument was a Lib Dem member of the EUROPEAN Parliament and the leaflet was published by his his office in Cambridge.
It contains the words “This leaflet has been supported by ALDE (the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) through 4000 funds. A trawl of the internet revealed that 4000 fund money is dished out by the EU to the political groupings in the European Parliament, who can spend it on whatever they wish except election campaigning.
It’s not necessary to be anti-AV (though, as it happens, I am) or a Eurosceptic to feel that taxpayers across the EU should not have to fund propoganda relating to a NATIONAL Parliament’s voting system.
I have no intention of rehearsing all the arguments and discussions which have gone before on the suitability of AV v FPTP. I actually believe on my interpretation of the evidence that FPTP is a fairer system than the AV variant proposed.
But hey why am I under attack when I share the same opinion as Mr Clegg – oh let me correct that – he used to share the same opinion as me and I haven’t changed my mind for personal political adavantage.
If this had been actual PR v FPTP then I would probably have gone for PR in a referendum. If people think that AV is a stepping-stone to PR then they are entitled to their opinion – personally I believe they are deluded and it would drastically delay or kill any move to PR
Call me paertisan if you wish but I have never hidden my socialist beliefs and would point out that after long-service in the LP I resigned when Blair became leader and only rejoined after Milliband was elected leader. I hardly think that I can be held personally accountable for Labour decisions when I wasn’t even a member of the party.
I also can’t help but smile at the LP being attacked for breaking promises given the broken promises already racked-up by the LibDems in less than a year. I predict there will be many more unless the LibDem Parliamentary Party actually start following their party’s policies and stop supporting Coalition Policies in direct contravention to LibDem policies.
However those attacking me on my AV position conveniently ignore the fact that I welcomed the Farron announcement because of the doors that it opens-up to meaningful discussions on a range of issues between the LibDems and LP. Obviously Clegg and Alexander will be deposed at some stage and Laws if he actually returns and they will find a comfortable billet with the Tories where they politically belong.
I personally think there are many more important things to be dealt with as a priority before a referendum on the voting system and even if I didn’t, I wwould have ensured a total overhaul of the electoral registration system first before having such a referendum.
Eco Jon – Despite posting seven paragraphs of self-regarding waffle you still didn’t actually answer the question; ‘what move towards PR’?
@Jim
I have made it clear that I do not see a change in the voting system as a priority and the move I talk about is not one pushed by the likes of Clegg for personal political gain and to suit a personal time-scale.
The move I talk about is the move among ordinary people to actually contemplate a change from FPTP – This has obviously been helped with the different voting systems which have come into place with the Assembly/Scottish Parliament Elections.
You see whether the likes of Clegg understands this or not it will be the ordinary voters who make this decision and they’ll make it when they are reeady to do so and not to a timescale designed to prevent a wipe-out of the LibDems at the next GE.
When I say that AV can halt or delay the move to actual PR that’s exactly what I mean – no trickery with words no smoke and mirrors just ordinary words used by ordinary people, I don’t think it matters whether AV is accepted or defeated by the referendum.
Either way it will be a very long time before PR gets back on the agenda if it ever does. I may be wrong in this but I don’t think I am but I’m quite happy to wait and see because as I have repeatedly made clear the defence of the weaker sections of our society and the preserving of hard won political gains like the NHS are what is of prime importance to me.
I am sorry that you seem to regard my response as 7 pars of ‘self-regarding waffle’. In defence of my verbosity I would remind you that I was actually responding to three different posters who had written 6 pars so I don’t feel I have overdone things.
But I suspect that it is not the amount that I have written but more likely what I have said that seems to be ruffling your feathers. It’s so sad because I thought you would have been happy for your party this weekend at the steps it has taken away from the ever rightward position it was being dragged to.
I can assure you that I am delighted for the LibDems and the many decent people in the party who I know will have no difficulty in making common cause with the LP to protect the NHS and fight other Tory excesses.
At least my speech wasn’t vetted by Cameron unlike Clegg’s – how sad that the leader of the LibDems shows his speech to the Tory leader for prior approval before delivering it to his party.
I think you have more to worry you in your own leadership than worrying about my honestly held views and opinions on AV which I do believe most LibDems would agree that I am entitled to hold even if they don’t agree with them, Of course perhaps you are one of the people who would rather see the LibDems remain on the rightward course and I have noticed often that this element of the LibDems brooks no opposition to their viewpoint and believes that EVERYTHING they do is 100 per cent correct.
We’ll see how things actually pan-out by the end of this Parliament when the people have their say on the LibDem record in Government. That is the only opinion that is of any importance.
If the UK votes for FPtP on the 5th of May, all hopes of PR will be lost. Most of the arguments against AV (coalition governments, expensive to count, complicated system, multiple votes, disproportionally powerful small parties etc) can also be used against PR. If we can’t convince the UK public to make the most modest of moves to a pluralistic voting system, we will not be able for 50 years to convince the UK public to take a drastic leap into a fully proportional system. For me, the most important thing about AV is getting people used to not just voting for one party, which leads to sickening tribalism (I will confess to being a sickening tribalist who could be enlightened by having to decide “tories or labour?”, “bnp or ukip?” etc etc).
Nonsense.
I somewhat agree with Rich. The problem is that I would imagine a lot of the population will see AV and PR as very similar. That means that if the AV vote is lost, then the Tories will be able to shoot down any proposal for a further referendum on full PR with the argument that ‘you already lost the referendum once, now you’re just disrespecting the public by trying to have another one.’ Of course those of us who understand the difference between PR and AV will recognize it’s a crass, misleading argument, but it’s nevertheless exactly the kind of simplification that’s likely to chime with much of the tabloid press, and could easily completely derail any move to PR.
As it happens I’m happy to vote Yes in the AV vote because I love the fact that with AV I’d no longer feel obliged to vote tactically for one of the top two parties in my constituency – I can actually vote for who I want to vote for. But even if I wasn’t happy about AV, I think I’d be inclined to vote Yes in the referendum in order not to damage the chances of getting PR (which is what I really want) in the future.
Andrew Suffield: “Nonsense.”
It’s been reported in the press today that Clegg DID show his speech to Cameron beforehand, and I see no reason to doubt it since it was officially confirmed a couple of weeks ago that he did the same thing with his “multiculturalism” speech.
I’m not sure whether a No or Yes vote makes a referendum on PR even more unlikely than it was before. But I do fear that holding the referendum has – in itself – kicked PR even further into the long grass. We Brits don’t hold referendums very often.
Probably the best chance of another referendum being held reasonably soon is if AV wins in May and it’s clear, after a couple of elections, that the relationship between votes and seats is even more cockeyed than under FPTP (see Australia). We then get another referendum in which the only choice – once again – is between AV and FPTP.