Clegg's alternative view on the alternative vote

luke

I think Ed Miliband's comments this week demonstrated that they think clegg will be so badly damaged if this coalition falls apart that he wont be a credible figure they have to worry about dealing with. He has staked so much on the coalition working that if it doesnt he will need to go and write his memoirs so the party has a free-hand to deal with Labour.

denis cooper

"If the AV referendum is lost, then Clegg will have a very difficult time keeping his party united and in the coalition."

I don't see why you've jumped to that conclusion. It might be true if the Bill was blocked and so the AV referendum didn't take place at all, but if it did take place then LibDem supporters of the move to AV would have been given their promised chance to win the debate and win the referendum. So what complaint could they then have which would justify taking LibDems out of ministerial positions, which they're enjoying after so many decades of being excluded from office? It wouldn't make a lot of sense.

"But if Clegg makes clear how much AV means to his party, then the chances of it being defeated increases as Labour voters and those dissatisfied with the coalition see it as a chance to bring it down. (Remember we can expect most Tory voters to back first past the post, making the support of Labour voters crucial to the passage of AV)."

I think you've slipped into a series of misconceptions here.

Truly committed Labour voters are only a small fraction of the electorate, and not all of that small number want to bring down the coalition, and some of them would actually prefer to have elections held under AV rather than FPTP. Similarly truly committed Tory voters are only a small fraction of the electorate, and some of them would also support the move to AV even if the Tory party officially opposed it.

The great mass of the registered electorate are now either floating voters, or voters with only a weak general attachment to a particular party, or non-voters. And then there are those who haven't even bothered to register.

If the "yes" side can inspire those who have stopped (or have never even started) voting to take the trouble to vote on this occasion, and to vote for a new electoral system which would apparently increase the value of their votes in the future, then recruits from that reserve army of habitual non-voters could easily carry the day.

TrevorsDen

Hurrah!

A post filled with some common sense!

Well done Mr Cooper ... you deserve a medal.

For what its worth I think a lot of people who voted tory (which is not quite the same as saying 'tory voters') could well vote for AV. Cameron is very wise to keep his powder dry. And even a narrow defeat would be encouraging for the LDs.

Mycroft

I think TrevorsDen is right to suggest that one cannot extrapolate from what most committed Tories think about AV to what most Tory voters will decide when the referendum comes; there could be curious developments, with many people on the left turning against it now that they know that the Liberals cannot always be relied upon to support the 'progressive' consensus.

Major Plonquer 1

So if the PEOPLE tell the LibDems to F_off, the Lib Dems won't hear us? They'll just tell us to F-off ourselves and pretend nothing's happened. Yes. That's what the LibDems have always been about. It's all coming out now there's nowhere for them to hide.