DAVID CAMERON went on the offensive over the alternative vote yesterday as the prime minister said that he believed “in my gut” that changing the electoral system would be a mistake.
Mr Cameron, sharing a stage with former Labour cabinet minister John Reid, said it would be a “backward step” for the public to approve the “second rate” AV system. He warned that AV would undermine the tradition of one person, one vote because some people would “get counted more than others”. The system – which is used only in three other countries – was obscure, unfair and expensive, he said.“For me, politics shouldn’t be some mind-bending exercise,” the prime minister said. “I feel in my gut that AV is wrong.”
Under the alternative vote system, candidates are listed in order of preference. A candidate receiving more than 50 per cent of votes is elected, but otherwise the second preference votes of the candidate who finished last are redistributed. The process continues until someone gets more than half of the votes.
Lord Reid argued that the first votes to be double-counted would be those of the least popular candidates. “It would be an outrage to try and secure a change to the electoral system for tactical party advantage by usurping the right of our citizens to an equal vote,” he claimed.
The Westminster debate on AV is becoming increasingly heated in spite of deep apathy among the voting public. Opinion polls are showing no clear lead for one side or the other with just over a fortnight to go to the May 5th referendum.
Mr Cameron recognised that the debate had failed to capture the public imagination: “Millions of people in our country aren’t engaged in this debate or this argument at all,” he said. The Tories fear that a Yes vote could make coalitions a more frequent feature of the political landscape.
Labour leader Ed Miliband was also blurring conventional party lines yesterday by appearing on a Yes platform with Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat business secretary. Mr Miliband, admitting that AV was not a “magic remedy or a magic cure”, said it would still make for a “fairer politics”.
“We see a broken politics, the reputation of politicians at an incredibly low ebb, people feeling increasingly detached from Westminster politics and turnout falling at general elections . . . That is why we are supporting a Yes vote in the AV referendum,” he said.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has so far stayed away from most Yes events as the campaign fears his unpopularity could taint their cause. The No campaigners are determined to link AV to the deputy prime minister, who has been widely blamed for the impending spike in tuition fees.
(Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)