Sir Fragula said:
How then does a left-leaning green operate in a constituency dominated by left-leaning nationalists? There is clearly enough space for multiple political parties at both ends of the spectrum and in the centre - but requiring that they pre-determine their 'coalition' intentions? That just seems a bit silly. It's not the parties themselves who determine their degree of interchangeability - it's voters.
I just don't see why you're afraid of AV. It just seems that your concerns - the "unaccountability" of coalitions - are concerns that are equally fielded at every other form of electoral reform, which you claim to be in favour of.
Oh, I don't think I'm afraid of it - and I certainly don't buy, for example, the arguments that it is too complicated to understand/expensive and so on that the No campaign keeps trotting out. I do have concerns about its 'fairness' at constituency level, which I've detailed somewhere further up the thread - of course I recognise there are different legitimate views that can be held about that, though most of the argument about seems to hinge on various assumptions about how the voting patterns would work out.
And I'm not all that fussed about coalitions in concept or in practice - indeed I'm very happy with the one we have now.
My major concern is entirely the other way around - it is the apparent tendency of AV to accentuate landslides - and landslides are usually a bad idea because big majority governments - of whatever political colour - have a tendency to push through grossly unfair and/or illiberal legislation (for example Thatcher's Poll Tax or Blair's 90 days) against which our only protection is the dear old House of Lords which despite its lack of democratic legitimacy does a pretty good job of standing up to stupid government legislation.
EDIT: (missed out a step in the logic first time round - oops) Now, the diffficulty with this is that if you are going to push through some big significant constitutional change you need either a big majority or a big consensus. On the turkeys-for-christmas principle, a government with a big majority might be able to, but won't want to, push constitutional change. And on the opposition-for-opposition's sake principle you'll never get a big enough consensus from a slim majority - as we're seeing at the moment. And I don't really want a voting system that tends to exaggerate these swings and so decrease the likelihood that we'll get the changes.
EDIT
new para) Besides, having taken a step towards AV, there may well be less inclination to push quickly for a further change. As I think I said further up the thread (or maybe somewhere else) I suspect Lords reform will be a better trigger for PR than the AV referendum, and the AV referendum - if the answer is yes - might end up slowing it all down.
So, taking AV as a sort of first step towards more proportional representation in the Commons seems because of this to make the eventual achievement of proportionality less, not more, likely.
Now, I recognise that not everyone - in fact maybe nobody at all(!) - will agree with that, but it seems to me to be a principled and tenable position and that's why I will be voting No.
(That's rather an abbreviated summary of my position - happy to expand/discuss, but it seemed unfair to subject you to a lecture at this stage! EDIT: dammit, looks like you got at least half the lecture anyway)
EDIT: That said, I'm also rather suspicious of the polls, and in particular whether all those polled are going to vote. I suspect that the demise of the Yes camp has been greatly exaggerated and that the final result will be closer than expected (not least because of the horrible No campaign, which may have shot itself in the foot). And if the vote goes Yes then I won't be railing against it - hey, that's direct democracy - but I will have to recast my own little vision for the future of UK politics a touch.
EDIT AGAIN: Rather surprising support for this point of view from Ed Miliband -
Ed Miliband via the BBC said:
Labour "should have" tried to change the UK voting system while it was in power, leader Ed Miliband has said.
The party broke a 1997 manifesto pledge to hold a referendum because it had "too big a majority," he admitted, but he had pushed for one in cabinet.
Ed Miliband said:
"Look we had too big a majority, and when a government comes along and has a majority of 170 there's not much incentive to change the electoral system, it's fair to say."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13278050
