Britain Wanted No Alternative To Whining

To start off, I'll admit this is an out dated blog. The issue closed months ago and it probably achieves nothing to write about it now, but the truth is I wasn't writing a blog when it happened and leaving it any later will only make it more out dated. Therefore, I suppose this is the best possible time for me to write it.


On the 5th of May 2011 the UK was given the opportunity to change their political system, and a resounding 70% of the voting populace (around 15% of the actual population) showed that they were happy a First Past The Post system rather than changing to Alternative Voting . Now, my views on this are easy to state, this was a mistake. The voting people of Britain were giving a once in a life time chance to change politics in their country, and they decided to stick with what they had, despite us being a country renowned for complaining about politics. I don't want this blog to sound overly preachy (although I know that it will) so I am going to give this some kind of structure. Luckily, I found that my structure has three parts that all start with the same letter. Stuff like that is cool, right? First up I will give a Reason for this blog, then a Reminder about something before ending with a Request.


Reason
There are a lot of reasons why I supported the campaign for AV, I could write about Arrow's Theorem of Voting or the terrible correlation between votes and power under FPTP, but the first is boring and the second is something that everybody already knows about. Instead I'll go with this, my main reason for supporting YES2AV was...

Over the past generations (I have no real idea when it started, I wasn't there) the people of Britain created a mind state for their political system. Somewhere along the line, most people gave up on the idea of voting for what they actually believed in or wanted for the country and started voting against whichever one of the two biggest parties they hated more.

There was a time when this made slightly more sense than it currently does. There was a time when Labour actually existed on the left side of politics and could've even been described as socialist (occasionally). However, things have changed. New Labour didn't just bring with it a massive budget deficit and deaths around the world but also a move to the right that landed themselves snugly next to views of the Conservatives. This means that Britain now has two centre-right parties that try to get votes by slagging off the other. Despite this, if people want to believe they aren't horrible, free-market, homophobes, they vote New Labour, and if people want to think they aren't communists, they vote Conservative.

This mind state will get us nowhere as both parties currently represent the same ideals and if you have a conversation with anyone, we all seem to hate those ideals. So my main reason for supporting AV was for the chance to change this. Under the Alternative Voting system people could happily vote for whatever crazy ideals they truly believed in, safe in the knowledge that if that party failed, they could vote for their least hated big boy second.

If the vote on the 5th of May had gone a different way, we could have finally seen what the people of this country actually want and what they actually believe in. But it didn't and we have cursed ourselves to generations of hanging on to outdated views of parties who used to have real values and voting to stop those dirty socialists (despite New Labour having next to no socialism in their politics) or nasty Tories (despite their most hated policies being forced by New Labour's greatest fuck ups) getting into power. Sure, there was a chance we would discover the majority of this country supports the BNP, but if that's what the country wants then give it to them. I would be out of here quicker than anyone else, but if the BNP are the party the British people want, then it is the one they deserve and I would happily leave them to turn even more sour in their own pathetic juices.


Reminder
Onto the second part of this blog, a reminder (which is a great song by The Perishers, if anyone cares). I'm not sure how many people know about this, but the NO2AV campaign was one run by propaganda and lies. The fact that the population of Britain fell for the stories they were throwing around is something that truly makes me question whether I can live in this country for the rest of my life.

First up, there is no evidence that an AV system would actually give the BNP more power, that was just something given out to get the nice people of middle Britain all outraged. However, the more important lies can be seen by the following picture.

The statistics the NO2AV side put out were incredibly full of holes, but the most true showing of this came on the 4th of May when David Blunkett came out and admitted the huge number you see at the top of that leaflet was entirely made up. The people who feared for their jobs under a new system got together and thought of a big number that would anger people into voting for their side and Britain fell for it because we still trust these people despite being shown time and time again that most current politicians will lie and deceive daily to get what they want.

So, this is the reminder. If you're ever in an argument with someone about anything to do with politics and they bring up something along the lines of New Labour or the Conservatives having too much power, people not standing up for what they believe in, or having no power in their votes, ask them which way they voted on the 5th of May, or if they even did vote. If their answer is they didn't vote, or they voted No, they have no right to be making those arguments and, more importantly than that, remind them that they sided with a group of people who used propaganda to hold Britain's progress back for their own interests.


Request
And here's my request, if there is anyone out there who voted No, or didn't vote at all, please tell me why. If you didn't vote, I understand it may have just been through bad planning or apathy, but if you voted No, please comment with your argument for why First Past The Post is a better system than Alternative Voting. I'm asking this because to date I haven't seen a single viable argument for FPTP and I think I'd be able to move on if someone could give me one. I feel like a dumped teenager who was never given a reason for why things had to end. I know AV isn't the perfect system, and I am a supporter of Proportional Representation, but if you are reading this and have a defence of FPTP, please state it. It could really help me get over this and, if nothing else, I'm sure my friends would thank you for that.


That's my preaching over for now, the next blog will be the My Favourite Post Secret of the Week.