Unlucky Clegg

[merkin]

Shame some of the retards that once supported you don't understand the difference of running a country in coalition as opposed to having an outright majority.

To compromise yourself in the national interest can't have been easy and it's a shame there are too many pricks aorund that don't undertand what chaos the country would have been thrown into if you hadn't.

Still, at least Tories are doing ok.

[daleylama]

Amen to that merkin and I know you're being serious for once.

Also, the AV vote will be a No vote without a shadow of a doubt.

Campaign for changing: It's fairer
Campaign against changing: It's confusing for thickos.

The thickos always come out on top.

[ab]

The campaigns are irrelevant. The turnout for the referendum was so poor that the only people likely to have voted on it are those who really really had an opinion on the issue or at least cared enough about voting for their local councillor to have bothered to turn up at all.

The problem for the Yes campaign was that the only people really supporting it were the LibDems and even then they were pretty lukewarm about it as being no more than a stepping stone to PR - more than half of the Labour Party MPs/Cllrs were in the No camp and even to the extent that anyone listens to Ed Miliband his support was pretty weak (eg admitting that Labour never bothered with electoral reform because they had such big majorities - if principled (sic) that would have been a good reason to press ahead with it) and tempered with the knowledge that a No would be harmful for the LibDems.

If you're looking to make a change you have to persuade people that it is worth the bother. At its highest the proponents of AV could only say that it was a little bit fairer, the main beneficiaries would be people who wanted to vote for candidates 3rd/4th and lower and probably the Libdems as traditionally the recipients of support from Labour voters who wanted to keep Tories out in a seat (and vice versa). Given LibDem unpopularity I doubt people would have been any more enthusiastic about Yes had Clegg been in the No camp.

[daleylama]

Simple Lama, simple thoughts.

Turkeys don't vote for Xmas. Cons/Lab don't vote for a change in the voting system. It could have been the best voting system ever suggested and it would have failed, I'm not on about politicians, I on about voters.

Voters in the Uk are party affliated if they know it or not. I reckon I'm the only person I know who reads all three manifestos at general election time cover to cover independantly unless anyone on here wants to own up to doing the same.

FPP is shit for me and has always been so from the time I was old enough to understand it.

Had Simon Cowell been in charge of the Yes vote however, I reckon it would have won.

that's an indictment on Britain's got Talent for me though, not Nick Clegg.

The first Naitonal Referendum in my whole life and the No campaign was "I don't get it"

That's what bothers me the most, not the result.

Our first national referendum was fought at Jeremy Kyle level from one side, irrespective of the subject matter.

[fgrfc_dan]

We were never, ever, ever going to get AV. It was a cynical ploy by the Tories to gain the support of the Lib Dems who were desperate enough to clutch at any straw.

They chose pretty much the weakest form of PR which must have split the vote amongst reformers and made it much harder to convince people of its merits.

On top of that (I've heard but can't be bothered to research to back up) the deal would have been all tied in with the proposed electoral boundary changes, a review, and a Commons vote. Even if yes had won, they would have lost all Labour support due to the boundary changes and there would be plenty of opportunity to discard it altogether.

[brispie]

The national interest. I hate the way that the tories have hijacked this so they can do whatever they want and say 'It's in the national interest'.

[ab]

IIRC the boundary changes and reduction in number of MPs was in the same legislation as the AV referendum but was not conditional on a Yes vote so will happen anyway. There was some talk of Labour voting against the referendum Bill because of this (ie so as to have no referendum at all).

Given the mauling Labour got in the Scots elections they might not be quite so bothered about the boundary changes as the biggest impact will be in reducing the number of Scots urban constituencies. These used to be Labour strongholds, but perhaps not so easily taken for granted when even the MSP for the area covering Gordon Brown's constituency is from the SNP.

[fgrfc_dan]

I think it was more the other way around - i.e. getting AV was conditional on the boundary changes. Obviously the Tories wanted those without AV and it looks like they've got their way.

[ab]

I just noticed some jobs as Assistant Commissioners at the Boundaries Commission to work on the changes. £505 a day for 10 days this autumn, 30 days next summer and another 10 days in Spring 2013.

[daleylama]

How does one apply for such a job and what skills are required?

Edit: Don't bother, found it.

"Applicants must be able to demonstrate strong evidence of communication skills (oral and written), analytical skills, and personal effectiveness. Previous experience of deploying these skills within a public and/or statutory context would be particularly desirable"

The ability to speak, write, think and do stuff. Evidence of thinking about what to write on a toilet wall should be sufficient.