Even more AV
OK, so I’d just about reasoned myself around to voting no. But every time I get there I run into some nightmarish turdpool of mendacity from the no campaign. I may just not be able to stomach doing anything that George Osborne, John Reid, Robert Edmiston, Dan Hodges, and “Tom” “Newton”-“Dunn” agree with. I’d abstain, but that’s no solution.
To summarise yet again, the arguments are as follows, net-net:
Yes: It’s crap, and it doesn’t afford an immediate kick at the Lib Dems, but there might be some angle to be had from it and anyway everyone hates the Lib Dems.
No: Inchoate lashout.
I’m actually quite keen on policy based on gut hatred – there have been quite a few occasions over the last ten years when allowing yourself to be guided by tribal loyalty, practiced trigger-movements, and aesthetic revulsion would have put you in the right when a lot of people got it wrong based on reason. But the rules are the rules, and surely the fear and loathing factor must respond to the sheer horror of the no campaign.
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Alternate Seat of TYR 
April 24, 2011 at 7:51 pm
No: Inchoate lashout.
Come on, I’ve been fleshing out the “yes to PR, no to AV” case for weeks now (in the form of comments on other people’s blog posts, unfortunately).
surely the fear and loathing factor must respond to the sheer horror of the no campaign
I prefer to see the No campaign as a foretaste of just how much trouble a No vote is going to make for the coalition – far more than a Yes vote, even if the Tories don’t want it. Cameron would turn on a sixpence – he’s got that “I will abandon any principles I might ever have had for the good of the country” act down pat – and if Sayeeda Warsi or somebody made trouble he could slap them down. The Tories can’t do that to the Lib Dems full stop, and Clegg isn’t in a strong position to crack the whip over his backbenchers, to put it mildly.
April 25, 2011 at 3:40 pm
How might AV have affected New Labour’s three terms in power? I think it is arguable that at least the final term would probably have been a Lib-Lab coalition, maybe even earlier. Now the Lib Dems are a complicated bunch, but the influence of the orange bookers notwithstanding, I suspect that would not have been a bad thing at all.
By the way comparisons to the role of the FDP in Germany are seriously out of date (the part of the FDP that might have wanted to form a coalition with the SPD disintegrated a long time ago – and also the SPD is a shadow of its former self).