AV Referendum Campaign Brings Out Best in Politicians

This weekend saw the long anticipated kick-off of the 5 May referendum to change the British voting system from First-Past-The-Post to Alternative Vote. Most people seem either not interested at all - one respondent to a recent questionaire thought AV stood for audio-visual and couldn't for the life of him comprehend why it was necessary to hold a referendum on that -, or haven't made up their minds yet. The latter would, I should imagine, relish politicians, after all our elected representatives to inform them of the benefits and disadvantages of changing or keeping the system. Incidentally, the former group seems rather large, which is why it struck me as foolish not to include a threshold requirement in the referendum bill. I can see why the Government wouldn't, after all it more than likely would have meant the referendum would be invalid if it were held and the Liberal Democrats wouldn't like that. But now it means that the, say, 30% of the electorate that bothers to vote will end up making the decision on one of the most radical changes to the British constitution.

But that's besides the point of this post. Less important perhaps, but nonetheless indicative of the thought and effort politicians put into this momentous referendum campaign is the fact that until now most of the speeches and comments politicians, or indeed random picked-up-off-the-street celebrities, made have consisted almost entirely of ad-hominem attacks on their opponents. Baroness Warsi, the Chairman (BBC, shouldn't that be chairperson in Post-Modern speak or at least Chairwoman?) of the Conservative party came out swinging:

"Too often, those people tend to be the ones who vote for extremist parties. This means AV could see candidates pandering to extremist voters - because to win a seat they will need to win the support of people whose first choices have already been eliminated."  ... "The long-term effects of that are clear: more votes, more power, more long-term legitimacy for the BNP and other fringe parties,"

 Thus in a few short sentences, Her Ladyship manages to imply that anyone who votes yes is a closet supporter of the BNP. In response Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem Environment Secretary and a Cabinet colleague of Baroness Warsi, saw-and-raised her comments by deigning to compare the Baroness to Goebbels, that role model of those lacking in anything true and meaningful to say:

"This is another example of the increasingly Goebbels-like campaign from the anti-AV people, for whom no lie is too idiotic given the truth is so unpalatable to them. AV makes lazy MPs work harder and reach out beyond their tribe. It is what Britain needs to clean up politics."

One would now expect David Cameron, the Prime Minister and therefore both mr. Huhne's and Baroness Warsi's boss, to sit the bickering children down and tell them to play nice and stop comparing each other's side to fascists. Yet mr. Cameron himself is skirting the lines of decency himself and in any case can't be too forward in the campaign as he has the improbable task of holding together a Cabinet made up of supporters (Lib Dems) and opponents (Tories) of AV. And to go head first into campaining for a side that is calling on people to vote no just to spite Nick Clegg might not be the wisest of courses.

One of the few politicians who is trying, in the end in vain, to stick to facts and arguments is Ed Milliband, but even he has to frame the entire line of his speeches around whether it's good or bad to campaign with Nick Clegg or defeat Nick Clegg or win for Nick Clegg or vindicate Nick Clegg or do something or nothing for Nick Clegg. But we can praise him for attemting to aspire to dignity, even if he fails. Maybe someone will take his cue from mr. Milliband and stop mentioning mr. Clegg at all and instead focus and what's really at stake, the ruin of a system that has provided Britain with stable governments for centuries in favour of a voting system that works so well that it's used by three countries around the world, of which one does not allow you to rank more than three candidates at a time (Papua New Guinea for those wondering).