The Bitter Thoughts Of A 'YES TO AV' voter and Manchester City Council Counting Assistant...
This morning I woke up, considerably less angry than I was, returning home from the count yesterday evening on the bus, I wanted to punch a lot of people hard in the face!
The 'No to AV' campaign won in the end, thanks largely to its' dirty tricks such as AV costing £250 million to implement (which David Blunkett admitted was a lie when most votes had already been cast...)
The fact that it made an impact on Britain's voting ('we don't want the fairest political system, we want the cheapest!') shows the scary mentality of some!
The appearance of Nick Clegg, seemingly now roundly hated by all after around a year ago being the golden boy of British politics, being one of the strong supporters of AV also really backfired.
David Cameron didn't have to do much, he knew that the NO vote was the favourite and concentrated on the Council Elections instead. He also knew that the coalition and this referendum could be short term things.
The cynical truth is that Cameron is aware that they will always have the leafy 'Shire seats to fall back on as Tory strongholds under First Past the Post, why risk motivating the minority voters in those areas?
The only upsides from the polls were that a bunch of racists (BNP and UKIP councillors) were voted out, the SNP now controls Scotland and I got to help count the votes in the Manchester City Council count for Wythenshawe and Sale East.
It was an intriguing look into politics and really did fire me up even more, I'd love to get involved but now with the system as it currently is, maybe that could be a long term aim? For now though, I'll look and see if another campaign interests me as much as 'YES to AV' did. If a campaign for a PR referendum came along, I'd be heavily involved in that.
Meanwhile, look at Northern Ireland's 2011 alternative vote elections, regular 60-70% turn outs and how Scotland's Parliament is now dominated by SNP, these supposed lesser nations are really showing England how to get people excited by politics and make change happen!
The simple truism is that we need change something about English politics, if below 50% (and sometimes as low as 20%) is regarded as acceptable turn out figures. The thing is, a lot of people I've talked to don't want AV as it does not go far enough but STILL VOTED NO!
Those people are living in an idealistic dreamland if they believe that they will be given the chance to vote for Proportional Representation once AV has been defeated, yet they would not be convinced.
Typical British cynicism has won the day once again, often people just didn't want to change as change is scary or they thought it would never happen, it's easier to sit around complaining about a Tory majority than do anything about it proactively, once again, those people have triumphed.
Of course, it might have been different had control freak Gordon Brown offered this referendum as part of a coalition deal to the Liberal Democrats in 2010, it might have been oh so different...
The 'No to AV' campaign won in the end, thanks largely to its' dirty tricks such as AV costing £250 million to implement (which David Blunkett admitted was a lie when most votes had already been cast...)
The fact that it made an impact on Britain's voting ('we don't want the fairest political system, we want the cheapest!') shows the scary mentality of some!
The appearance of Nick Clegg, seemingly now roundly hated by all after around a year ago being the golden boy of British politics, being one of the strong supporters of AV also really backfired.
David Cameron didn't have to do much, he knew that the NO vote was the favourite and concentrated on the Council Elections instead. He also knew that the coalition and this referendum could be short term things.
The cynical truth is that Cameron is aware that they will always have the leafy 'Shire seats to fall back on as Tory strongholds under First Past the Post, why risk motivating the minority voters in those areas?
The only upsides from the polls were that a bunch of racists (BNP and UKIP councillors) were voted out, the SNP now controls Scotland and I got to help count the votes in the Manchester City Council count for Wythenshawe and Sale East.
It was an intriguing look into politics and really did fire me up even more, I'd love to get involved but now with the system as it currently is, maybe that could be a long term aim? For now though, I'll look and see if another campaign interests me as much as 'YES to AV' did. If a campaign for a PR referendum came along, I'd be heavily involved in that.
Meanwhile, look at Northern Ireland's 2011 alternative vote elections, regular 60-70% turn outs and how Scotland's Parliament is now dominated by SNP, these supposed lesser nations are really showing England how to get people excited by politics and make change happen!
The simple truism is that we need change something about English politics, if below 50% (and sometimes as low as 20%) is regarded as acceptable turn out figures. The thing is, a lot of people I've talked to don't want AV as it does not go far enough but STILL VOTED NO!
Those people are living in an idealistic dreamland if they believe that they will be given the chance to vote for Proportional Representation once AV has been defeated, yet they would not be convinced.
Typical British cynicism has won the day once again, often people just didn't want to change as change is scary or they thought it would never happen, it's easier to sit around complaining about a Tory majority than do anything about it proactively, once again, those people have triumphed.
Of course, it might have been different had control freak Gordon Brown offered this referendum as part of a coalition deal to the Liberal Democrats in 2010, it might have been oh so different...