Alternative Vote? It's the only way forward.

I am really irritated that many of Labour’s old farts are trying to sabotage the plebiscite of voting reform, in much the same way as their wrong-headed ‘intellectual’ predecessors went all out to drag the UK out of the European Economic Commission just two years after it had entered, when the Labour Party was given freedom to choose sides. It was the weakness of Harold Wilson that compelled him to give vent to this (akin to the Presbyterians of Scotland rejecting London’s centralising control prior to the English Civil War, mirroring the conflict that afflicted Labour in the early 1980s) and it is the same trait in Ed Miliband – they cannot control their party.
We can understand the Tories not voting for it because when they can never get more than 50% of the public ballot, such a reform will dilute their chances of untrammelled power. It is the same motivation of these New Labour ‘old methodologists’. They don’t want to share rule, even if they only secure 35% of people’s choice. It is not about reflecting better the electorate’s will, but their own, even if its in a system that is little improved on the ‘rotten boroughs’ (though with the size of some Labour constituencies, they may be used to it). When a party achieves a greater share of the vote than the previous general election, yet their representation in parliament falls, as happened with the Liberal Democrats, it surely is the sign of a corrupt and broken system. The Lib Dems had to make a lot of sacrifices to get this on the statute books (not certain even yet), but at least the Conservatives were offering it. Despite being in their own manifesto, the Labour coalition negotiating team were not prepared to cede any ground to the Lib Dems (proof that they had not adapted to the ‘new’ politics), on any matter. On one Lib Dem proposal, Peter Mandelson spluttered “Haven’t the rich suffered enough already?” At least David Cameron was ready with a deal far more generous than many of his backbenchers wanted. Labour did not want a partner; they wanted an appendage that would allow them to continue on their previous path.
Let’s look at Labour’s ‘unprogressives’. Lord ‘Charlie’ Falconer, one of Blair’s old chums (need we say more?), a right twit, but let’s replace the vowel in that noun with another. Lord Reid, a man who when in the cabinet had nine jobs in as many years and failed in all of them, a man whose people skills caused all of Scotland’s football referees to go on strike, a man who tried to block a smoking in public places ban in England because his constituents wanted to die slowly down the pub even though his seat was in Scotland, which already had a ban in place. He himself ‘is not fit for purpose’. Another Lord (I like this democratic consensus) is John Prescott and he hardly left his position unblemished. Out of government but still writing in right-wing rags is Jack Straw, an unreconstructed authoritarian on everything from law and order to illegal invasions.
Then we come to Margaret Beckett. I love her justifications for opposing voting reform. She cites how few countries use AV (hmm, how many genuine democracies mirror the British political system, especially with an unelected upper chamber?). Those that do employ them she carps are Fiji, which is abandoning it and Australia, which had a dramatic fall in turnout with it in place, they resorted to compulsory voting. Fiji is run by a military junta that came to power in a coup that opposed how the ethnic minorities had a say in how the place was run and was kicked out of the British Commonwealth for its lack of democracy and human rights. What a nice ally of Beckett. Moving to Australia, being a modern, industrialised democracy, it suffers from the voter apathy that comparable countries fall victim to, so to ascribe it to AV is either misjudged or a lie. Indeed, turnout in the UK fell in each of Labour’s three triumphs (1997, 2001 and 2005), only rising in 2010 when they were being kicked out. And what about compulsory voting – wasn’t that floated by your erstwhile conspirator-in-arms, Geoff Hoon, in the bumbling, failed palace coup against Gordon Brown. Furthermore, why is compulsory voting (or paying a small fine) such a bad thing?
A more motley crew, if ever assembled, I scarce can imagine and to pitch themselves with dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives proves the adage that the political spectrum is just a circle, when extremists can find common cause while officially disdaining the other. Yet the polls suggest that a majority would vote ‘no’. This can be explained by asking people “do you want to keep something that you vaguely know how works or change to something you know virtually nothing about?” Most sane adults would choose what they already know rather than leap into the unknown. It is about public information. Even such an ardent supporter of voting reform as I, know little about whether it is AV or AV+ (Roy Jenkins’ half-way house proposal between alernative vote and pure proportional representation), though I fear it is the former. Still, half a loaf is better than none at all. There are idealists who won’t vote for AV as it is not PR, but these are utopianists. AV is not perfect but it is fairer than first-past-the-post. And if the Labour wants to toast the Lib Dems because they were spurned (no matter how reasonable that spurning), they may find it backfires on them as the Tories stay in power for a generation and another plebiscite not to be offered for decades. That is a prospect I find unacceptable as it is unpalatable – for my vote not to count for so long.