beaux nidle wrote:
thanks for that, a considered reply with relevant points but the main thrust of your argument is completely undone by millionaire banking scion clegg's opportunist liberal party leaping into bed with the millionaire banking scion cameron's recidivist tories.
this is not the time to be arguing niceties.
this government is systematically and deliberately undoing all of the work that labour has done since 1945.
if the liberals are so liberal, they should cross the floor.
I think that's the point really, it's Clegg's Liberal's that have done this and it is out of step with their tradition, just as Blair was by and large out of step with mich of Labour tradition. The majority of their MPs did not vote to raise tuition fees and their members voted overwhelmingly against free schools and the NHS reforms - there is something in that party that Labour can work with which is not reflected by the paty leadership; just as Blair wasn't really the voice of Labour but instead one acceptable to the slither of swing voters parties need to win elections.
If we focus too much on Clegg, we can forget that wider section of Liberal thought that Labour might need to work with, like here in my own town (a place where a Labour MP is an impossible dream). I live in a massively middle class area, which used to be the safest Tory seat on the country. But the Liberals here choose Labour to work with, making sure the voice of Labour was represented in a town where normally it was ignored - hard for me to not to have a level of respect for them for doing that.
Nicities for the sake of them are a waste of time, but AV in my town would allow the work of Liberal/Labour cooperation to continue. I've seen the difference it can make in keeping the Tories out and, maybe selfishly, I want AV as it will allow me to live in a town, as well as country, which has the option of uniting to keep the Tories out for good.
FPTP gave no other electoral option than a Tory government last year, with AV there would have been a Non-Tory mandate and Clegg's right-wing liberalism that we see now could not have been enacted.
In today's world FPTP means either watered down Labour governments that focus on winning the support of soft-Tory, like 1997, 2001 and 2005 or a Tory government like now. AV gives us that more hope of bringing together the Anti-Tory voice in this country, which is a more realistic goal as I don't ever really see the return to landslide True Labour governments like we did in 1945 - when did you last hear a Labour leader talk of nationalisation in a positive way? It may not be the ideal situation we want to be in, but better than we have now.