Video also available on YouTube.
Here’s a preview of the Yes campaign’s broadcast which will be shown tonight on BBC1 and ITV at 6.55pm.
It features voters calling MPs to account – their voices amplified for a change, using the politician’s electioneering loudhailer as a metaphor for a fairer voting system.
Watch this video – have a little think about who your MP should work for, and then make sure everyone you know is ready to say Yes in May.
You can sign up to the Yes campaign at the YES! to Fairer Votes website. Also find out what your local Liberal Democrats are doing for the campaign and get involved in your neighbourhood.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The mysterious mole men of New York caught on video
Doing better? The goal must be Sufficeincy
Michael Meadowcroft (1942-2026) - A Liberal to His Core
Labour deputy claims that Farage is a threat to democracy
Mick Taylor
Jason Connor
Chloe
theakes
36 Comments
That is the worst broadcast I have ever seen (and I support the YES vote). It’s incredibly amateurish and will persuade precisely no-one. It makes the Christina Party broadcast looks positively cinematic.
I’m still not sure how to vote.
The broadcast contains one complete untruth. There is no guarantee that someone will be elected with a 50% share under AV. If enough people don’t give their extra preferences, then the winner will still be elected with less than 50%. Lying in a campaign doesn’t give much confidence.
Also, all the people with the megaphones just looked pushy and irritating. More concerned with having a moan than getting on with making life better. Not people I would like to hang around with to be honest.
Not that the No2AV ad was any better, of course ….
@Ian – True, but it is much more likely than at present Ian, and it will genuinely remove the need for tactical voting.
@Ian – if people express no further preferences then they are saying that they don’t mind who wins of those candidates who remain; they are choosing not to cast a vote in the runoff. They are therefore choosing not to participate, just like someone who doesn’t vote at all. Therefore it is completely true and accurate to say that the winner must get over 50% of the vote.
All the YES broadcast said was that candidates had to “aim for” 50% of the vote – which is entirely factual.
Not as good as the NO broadcast last night, IMO. The YES camp needs to nail the “too complicated” myth asap.
The too complicated myth is strange – AV is simple for the voter. It is slightly more complex for the person counting the votes, but only slightly.
If we did it for ice cream flavours (Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Pistachio, Cucumber say) Its as simple as butting the ones you like in order of preference, and not numbering any you don’t like. Simples.
I support the yes campaign and even I have to admit that the notoAV ad last night was much more effective than this.
Why oh why did they not dedicate some of the time to explain the AV system? Its not hard, AV its as simple as 1, 2, 3 would go a long way to doing it. Instead they have let the notoAV lies about AV being complicated and unfair in their broadcast go unchallenged
@Ian
The winner only gets elected if they have 50%+ of the votes *in the final round*. Therefore they do require 50% of the votes to be elected.
@ Andrew and Peter – agreed, Yes2AV need to say something about this pronto, especially given how pernicious this myth is and how patronising the assumption that people are too thick to rank people in order of preference.
@George.
That is simply not true. If insufficient people have selected the ‘winner’ in lower preferences, they can still win with less that 50% of the vote, because less than 100% of the votes are available to be allocated. For an example, see the 5Live mock election, where the Labour candidate won with 49% , Greens were second with 41.7% and there 9.3% who had no preference to allocate in the final round.
Interesting video, not quite sure what it has to do with AV or changing the voting system, getting rid of all of politicans perhaps. One has to wonder if there is a side bet between the yes and no camps to see who can be the most misleading.
@Ian
True, but those 9.3% who had no preference in the final round effectively didn’t vote – i.e. they didn’t express a preference between the remaining candidates, in the same way as non-voters don’t express a preference between any of the candidates.
When discussing elections, we usually say ‘candidate A won with 40% of the vote’ for example, even though that only means 40% of those who actually voted, not of the whole electorate. Since it’s the norm to exclude those who don’t express a preference from winning percentages, I don’t think the AV statement about 50% is dishonest at all – it means 50% of those who expressed a preference between the candidates who made it to the final round. Just like under FPTP we would say that Blair in 2005 got 36% of the vote, meaning 36% of those who expressed a preference and excluding those who didn’t vote.
@Ian
As Catherine said, the winner is the one who gets 50% of the votes in the final round. If someone didn’t express a preference in the final round then they aren’t voting in the final round and their vote isn’t counted.- just as someone who doesn’t vote under FPTP doesn’t get their vote counted when working out what percentage vote the winner got.
But in that case the votes of the people discounted in the final round still didn’t get a say in the result as their vote was disregarded – how is that less disenfranchised than FPTP?
@John – the NO campaign must be winning that bet by a large margin!
I agree the video does make it sound like AV is going to solve all the problems in politics and I dislike the way it portrays all MPs as cowardly, arrogant, self-serving prats (though no doubt that will chime with the public’s current perception). In reality, AV is a fairly small change that will give voters a bit more of a say at the ballot box and will affect the outcome in probably a few dozen seats or so. And since the most ridiculous expenses claims did tend to come from the MPs with the safest seats, making safe seats slightly less safe will hopefully do something to address that issue too (though of course AV won’t make all safe seats a thing of the past).
But surely the YES campaign’s “AV will revolutionise politics and abolish safe seats” claims are dwarfed by the NO side’s rhetoric of “AV will risk soldiers and babies’ lives, cost £250 million (if you include the referendum itself and non-existent counting machines) and anyway writing 1, 2, 3… on a piece of paper is far too complicated for voters’ tiny brains to cope with”.
@Ian – but at least they have the option to vote in the final round. Under AV, everyone can express the full number of preferences if they choose – and those who do fill in all the available preferences are guaranteed a say in the final result. Under FPTP, you only have the option to vote in what is effectively the “final round” (i.e. the top two candidates) if you manage to guess correctly who the two most popular candidates will be and then cast your vote for one of them.
But it still remains that claiming someone has 50% of the vote is a disingenuous claim. They have 50% of people who have selected one of the two candidates which is not the same thing as 50% of all those who took part in the election. It is a hollow claim and doesn’t really solve one of the main problems of FPTP.
Andrew, Peter & Catherine – I don’t think it’s clever campaigning to start responding to your opponents’ attacks; you’re then just spending your time discussing the intricacies of voting methods and it will get confusing and nothing would make the No camp happier.
Most of the problems identified are far better solved by other reform than AV.
To quote Robert Colville:
“There are four separate measures – all of them long campaigned for by Carswell, Daniel Hannan, and other members of the localist tribe – that would, in an instant, force MPs to become far more responsive to their constituents.”
“The first is compulsory open primaries: parliamentary candidates would be selected not by party members, but in a ballot of every constituent who cared to take part. That means that would-be MPs would have to cater not to their own activists, but to the public as a whole.”
“The second reform is simple: to repeat the exercise at every election, in a full re-selection process, to ensure that inadequate MPs cannot easily cling to their seats.”
“The third is to give voters a right of recall – as promised in the Coalition Agreement, which said it would “bring forward early legislation [to allow] voters to force a by-election where an MP is found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had a petition calling for a by-election signed by 10 per cent of his or her constituents”
“The final proposed reform is equally powerful: referenda. These are being brought in at a local level, but what about the idea that any proposals that attract a certain number of signatures must be debated in Parliament, with adequate time and a proper vote?”
“Each of these measures has its pros and cons. But any of them would make MPs far more accountable to their constituents than AV – in a far more direct and far more effective way.”
I find the Alan B’astard video far more amusing and informative.
In terms of truth both campaigns have made outrageous lies. But the NO ad last night was much better than this. This ad was simply based on the idea that MPs have to work harder for our votes and therefore will change their behaviour to get and stay elected and therefore it will better. BUT one must bear in mind that AV won’t affect the outcome in any seat that a party already has 50% of the vote in FPTP – there are about 1/3 of seats in this category and they will remain safe under AV. Secondly, seats that are won by almost 50% of the vote – i.e. more than 45% of the vote are unlikely to have much affect under AV either, since I’m sure that about 10% of people won’t transfer at all – particularly BNP supporters who will not want to vote for any of the three major parties.
With regard to the 50% of the vote, Ian is right. If you don’t cast a 2nd preference, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are indifferent between all the other candidates, it may mans you dislike all of them equally. For example, take the hypothetical situation where your ballot paper contains both the BNP and the National Front. I, for one would never consider giving either party a preference even though I would regard the NF as slightly worse than BNP. But that doesn’t mean I would want to give the BNP a preference.
Moreover, AV still is very unfair. Consider a 4 way marginal where Tories come 1st with 5000 votes, Labour 2nd with 3505 votes, Lib Dems 3rd with 3500 votes, and Greens 4th with 3499 votes. the green is eliminated and most of his transfers go to the Lib Dem who then overtakes Labour, and with the elimination of Labour the Lib Dems win. However, consider the situation where most Tories preferred the Green to the Lib Dem, most Labour preferred Green to the Lib Dem and most Lib Dems put Green down as their 2nd prefs. When considering a combination of 1st and 2nd preferrences, the Greens would win but under this system the Lib Dems would win because they had one more 1st pref than the Greens, despite most non-Lib Dem voters preferring Greens to Lib Dem. The point is under AV, the stage of elimination of certain candidates can be vital in governing who will win the seat.
AV is based on a spectrum of popularity from most popular to least popular. It’s like having an examination system based on no failures just a sliding scale of passes. It won’t be a battle of competitive political ideas but a personal X factor-like contest for second preference votes. OK for leadership elections but as a tool for deciding which party has the best pollcies, no way. Chances are no party will want to put forward any policies without health warning written all over them. Can’t risk another tuition fees fiasco.
If the Yes campaign wins next month, we’ll all be just as disappointed with the consequences as when we believed those claims about the 50p tablets which were supposed to be as good as Viagra. Second thoughts, I think that was just me.
Instead they have let the notoAV lies about AV being complicated and unfair in their broadcast go unchallenged
Perhaps its because from one perspective (the voter) AV is simple – he/she just puts 1-2-3 and on the surface it looks fair..
But from another collective perspective perhaps it is unfair (it’s not proportional at all for an parliamentary election) and I certainly believe that once we see what happens it practice if AV comes in (I forsee the party list becoming common) it might well look very complicated for a voter.
@peebee
How exactly will it bring party lists in? There’ll still only be one candidate per party per seat.
@George W. Potter
I assume PeeBee means the party sponsored ‘voting guides’ which are common in the Australian system. The big parties each produces its own guide for each constituency which lists the preference order which will be most beneficial to that party. I don’t doubt they’ll make their way over here, although as the NSW and Tasmanian state elections prove, AV without compulsory preferences means most voters will treat the election as a FPTP election anyway
Actually, I saw the advertisement first without any volume, and the voters did look really annoying. Why were they picking on those poor people just because they supported the No campaign? However, when I heard the sound and realised that the ‘poor’ people with the No rosettes were MPs, I thought it was much, much better.
The whole 50% debate depends on being clear what you mean. The No claim that the 50% winning post is an outrageous lie is an overblown exaggeration when the principle/intention of a 50% winning post clearly holds good. At worst the Yes claims are ambiguous, and even then they are still a good approximation to the outcome.
Any alleged ambiguity in the Yes claims is of course as nothing to the No campaign’s “Vote yes and this baby/soldier dies” advertisements based on the cost of phoney counting machines. That was a deliberate and monstrous lie.
I also agree that the excesses of the Australian system can be avoided, because voting will not be compulsory, and it will not be compulsory to vote for all the candidates. You can still vote for only one candidate if you want, especially if you think they will be one of the top two candidates. Basically, it’s all power to the voters!
By contrast, yesterday’s No broadcast was just a series of non sequiturs:
Alan B’stard’s claim that he could get away with promises he didn’t mean to keep, didn’t explain why this would happen with AV. Which is hardly surprising since this is what actually happens with FPTP thanks to safe seats. Under AV, someone who lets down the voters will be far more heavily penalised (and that goes for Lib Dems as well).
The racetrack example also failed to explain how the third placed candidate (on first preferences) would get elected. It simply relied on the result being “first-past-the-post”, which is a misleading name, since there is no winning post in FPTP. In fact it would have been more realistic to show FPTP as the result halfway through the race (or more accurately in the first round of heats), which of course is no guarantee as to who will eventually win.
The final classroom example was of course all about non sequiturs. Deliberate obfuscation.
The c**p advert does at least maintain a consistency with the other elements of the ‘Yes’ Campaign. Thankfully, the ‘No’ campaign is\worse.
So glad I contributed a tenner to the Yes campaign, but from the production values of this advert, it looks I was the only one who did…
Excruciating.
@chigsee
Your comment about 1/3 of seats still being ‘safe’ under AV assumes that voters will not change their voting patterns under AV when they know they don’t need to vote tactically. Voters are brighter than you think !
Having just seen the rolling advert above that states – “Sign up and say no to the BNP vote YES to fairer votes” I must say it has got my back a little as the inference is you are supporting racism if you vote no, I am undecided at the moment but the above ad is doing the yes vote no favours at all as far as I’m concerned
Watching it again it seems to me that the advert is saying that it is okay to harass an MP in his home, on the street or even in a restaurant, just because they’re paid by the taxpayer. Can we do the same to doctors, nurses, local government employees etc as well?
Like just about everything concerned with the AV Referendum: dull.
Next time we hold this referendum, can we have an inspired and inspiring campaign please?
Despite hoping fervently for a Yes vote, I know that there is next to no chance now, hasn’t been for many months truth be told.
@george w potter
George – By party lists I mean every party (and there won’t be any moral high ground here) will inevitably look at the position in their own area and put forward lists of preferences ie please support us first followed by this person and that person (that this can lead to backroom deals is a strong no to AV point that came over well in their broadcast) – in some cases it will also mean that parties might advise supporters not to support their candidate as first preference (if for example they know they have no chance and want another candidate to potentially win).
That is just as bad as tactical voting under FPTP – I know that supporters of AV will say that individuals can make up their own mind – but worse because of this I believe parties will start choosing candidates that, rather than supporting policies. will be chosen as the ‘best fit’. I’m still a supporter of PR but AV seems to have at least as many disadvantages as FPTP.
Having looked at the ad again (I couldn’t get past those megaphones first time and if anything is going to irritate a potential NO voter it’s this sort of ‘you’re a bit stupid for even thinking of voting no’ scenes) I’m amazed that the three bullet points at the end are:
Make MP’s work harder for you (can AV really do this??)
Help stop jobs for life (No it doesn’t in many cases – and what does that phrase mean anyway – if you want your MP to stay then you keep voting him/her in – that will still happen with AV)
Have more say (Hardly hard hitting is it?)
There are at least half a dozen self made ads on youtube that make the case for AV better than this.
It’s almost as if the yes campaign doesn’t believe in itself – if that is the case I think it’s a lost cause and rightly so.
Some MPs will have jobs for life under any electoral system.
Actually I wouldn’t mind my MP having a job for life if he / she was outstandingly good. What’s needed is
transparancy, and the good news is that it’s become harder for bad and greedy MPs to hide.
Perhaps this is why Blair said one of his greatest mistakes as PM was Freedom of Information (the other being the hunting ban – Iraq wasn’t a mistake of course).
@ peebee – “That is just as bad as tactical voting under FPTP – I know that supporters of AV will say that individuals can make up their own mind – but worse because of this I believe parties will start choosing candidates that, rather than supporting policies”
Agreed, tactical voting is even less appealing under AV if only because rather than being a private choice it becomes ‘institutionalised’ via the circulation of approved voting preferences.
An unhealthy development in my opinion.