There's a Dirty Little Secret they don't want you to know about AV - you can find out all about it with this short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmP81NW9_O0

Definitive proof of the contempt for any genuine democracy in the UK when even a plebiscite is disregarded by these arrogant 'representatives" of ours.

Although I'm in support of the referendum for AV (with the aim, like many, of hoping to achieve PR), I think it's very unlikely that the Yes campaign will persuade voters.

The No lobby is, essentially, using an ungrounded smear campaign in its literature. Many for the No cause would argue there are many great points against the adoption of AV in this country, but they just aren't being utilised.

Instead, the No campaign seems reliant on trying to convince people of the 'complicated' nature of the system, and the horrendous 'cost' of the referendum. Neither holding particularly true, given the fact that the system involves ranking candidates in order of preference, and leaving those candidates out that one has no preference between, and the figures used on the cost are distorted and seem to have been invented from no solid facts.

There are plenty of other problems with the No campaign - citing 6/10 Australians as not liking the system, despite the survey Cameron used for this 'fact' not actually offering Australians AV and using the fact that AV is not used in many countries as some sort of over-arching conclusive point.

But the real problem comes with the campaign in London - in my opinion. The most populous city in the country is subjected to a saturation of No propaganda. Although there are debates and the Yes campaign has advertising space, No dominates. Most bus stations have 'No to av' signs, while the newspaper most commuters read on the way home from work - The Evening Standard - has included an appeal against AV from the Prime Minister and the paper's own request for a No vote from Londoners, but nothing from the side of the Yes camp.

As Cameron is against the referedum, and Clegg unable, or perhaps unwilling, to promote it (at the platform in favour of AV yesterday) the odds seem stacked against a 'Yes' from the outset. It doesn't help that many behind the campaign back it half-heartedly because they really want to see, ultimately, PR. It's hard to get completely behind a means to an end, after all.

Find me on Twitter - @legaljourno

This is why we're going for a liberal/ndp coalition if we ever have the chance in canada.
The damn tories ruin everything they touch.

Is John Reid any relation to the author of 'Ten Days that Shook the World?"
We suspect it's strictly 'on the nose', all or nothing, or at the least a TKO for this bonnie Scottish scrapper.
With all this talk of 'localism', we consider the break-up of the United Kingdom could lead to a loose confederation of nation states, a la Yugoslavia.
Maybe not. London encircled by the M25 would make a perfect national capitol. England, Scotland, Wales and the 'Irish' Six counties would be under the overall control of a London Federal Government. The four nations would all have their own governments; senators and representatives.
London would be a little like Washington - but without a President.

My Head Hurts

Steve Swaine superbly demonstrates the point how the No campaign is resorting to smears and bluster, rather than reasoned argument. Obviously, small parties are opposed to the present system because they are 'unelectable' under it - but this is confusing effect with cause. 'Minority' parties are 'unelectable' only because FPTP is a flawed, winner-takes-all electoral system, which is incapable of representing modern pluralistic
politics.

The notion that opposition to FPTP derives from envy of a two-party system is simply risible - up there with the old 'politics of envy' canard. Can an electoral system which produces a two-party parliament really be said to be representative of modern British politics? This simply feeds into the 'all politicians are as bad as each other' cynicism which FPTP promotes by discounting the views of so many of the electorate. Anyway, as the present coalition amply demonstrates, FPTP is increasingly of delivering incapable of delivery the clear-cut results which its defenders claim as its chief advantage.

@Stu Labour had a commitment to a referendum on AV in THEIR manifesto.
But you've got to admire the ruthlessness of the Tories, spending so much money & spreading so many lies to blow LibDem hopes of a change in the voting system out of the water. Clegg & the LibDem leadership have been out manoeuvred, simple as that.