Letter: We don’t need to waste money on AV referendum
Friday 18th March 2011, 5:54AM GMT.
Letter: I think most of us believe there are many things wrong with our country that need to be addressed by our Government, like sorting out the deficit left by Labour, controlling immigration, enforcing the rule of law in our land, care for the sick and elderly and many more.
Surely what we do not need is to waste money (£90 million is suggested) having a referendum on the way we choose our MPs.
This is a sop to Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats as a reward for supporting the Tories in a coalition and is typical of the failings of such forms of compromise government.
Introduction of the alternative vote system will increase the chances of more coalition government in the future, leading to fudged decisions and lack of the progress we need to make, if we are to survive.
We don’t need this change and your readers can help prevent it by voting no to AV in the referendum to be held in May.
M Green
Stirchley Park
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So what you’re saying, in essence, is that asking the public for their opinion on a subject as important as deciding how our democracy works should never happen, and that we should sail on obliviously into the future without giving it so much as a second thought?
Good thing you didn’t have Oliver Cromwell’s job.
Anyway, if you’re so convinced you’re right, then how about testing that by putting it to a public vote. Oh, wait…
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Although I sympathise with Mr. Green’s point regarding the state of the nation’s finances surely he can realise that making our voting system fairer and forcing politicians to work harder for votes will help to curb tendencies like the rampant Labour over spending or the MPs expenses scandal.
After all Gadaffi could turn around and say Libya doesn’t need democracy it needs jobs and a healthy economy. Essentially fair and just democratic process is vital to good governance.
As for the 90m figure, that has already been spent on the referendum! So like it or not, voting Yes, No or simply not voting, will not save that money. So please, grasp the first opportunity in 36 years to have a direct say in our politics and help mend our broken system.
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“Essentially fair and just democratic process is vital to good governance”
Remove the democracy from government you get governance.
But will AV deliver? all it will really do is place more power in the hands of the political parties to decide who the government will be and what its polices will be after we have voted. It will also increase the LibDem representation in parliament making the third party king-maker, unless there is a landslide.
A case in point a referendum on the AV system was not in the manifestos of either of the parties in the coalition but was the price the Conservatives had a pay to form the coalition.
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Changing the voting system was in the Lib Dem manifesto. Admittedly they did not propose changing to the AV system, rather to a Proportional Representation system. Of course the Tories would not agree to a vote on a PR system, so the coallition partners compromised, met in the middle, and so we have a referendum on changing to the AV system.
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The LibDems came third in the Election.
We have the AV referendum ONLY because of the behind doors negotiation between the parties after we had cast our votes, that was my point.
If the experts are right the AV system will enhance the LibDem representation and we will have moor of this sort of deal where we the voters are left out of the loop. I do not think that is democratic as the parties will never be expected to even try to follow their manifestos as all policy will be decided by the parties as they attempt to form a government.
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You suggest we avoid coalition governments in because they are taking too long to sort out the mess created by a non coalition government. You sound like you are saying no to AV, yet what you have written above suggests that AV won’t get us in the mess in the first place. AV it is then(!)
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He’s right. This has got to be one of the least important issues facing us right now. Nobody cares. Don’t you think that at the present moment, the millions spent on this pointless exercise might be better diverted elsewhere?
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Let me get this straight, we should vote no *in* the referendum because the referendum is expensive.
Surely the sensible option would have been that we should vote no *to having* the referendum because it would be expensive.
But then again, when the public voted the LibDems into a position of kingmaker they surely knew that the party stood for PR, so in a way, that was the referendum on whether there should be a referendum and it was carried.
Now we’re having a referendum there is no point in voting ‘no’ in protest to the cost of having the option the vote. That would be ridiculous.
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I shall use mine as a EU vote, by writing across the paper. OUT OF THE EU.
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…and your vote will be void.
Your protest will be read by exactly one person. Who, on May 6th, will place it in a pile of spoiled ballots. And I very much doubt that person has the authority to remove the UK from the EU.
Good try though… you go for it!
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I think the letter writer would be do better to spend time looking at the true cause and nature of our current financial ‘crisis’.
Our debt to GDP ratio was something of the order of 62% of GDP at the point of change of government. Half of that was caused by the cash spent directly bailing out failed banks. That leaves an adjusted debt to GDP ratio (the true figure when you take away the banks’ debt) of 30% or so.
To put that into some context – the lowest debt to GDP ration we’ve had in the last 50 years or so was in the low 20s in percentage terms – it’s also been at well over 100% of GDP in that period. Japan’s debt to GDP ratio before the recent natural disasters was 200% of GDP!
So worrying about tiny side issues like immigration is simply nonsensical. We lose far more jobs to large companies exporting them to cheaper labour markets abroad than we do to immigrants coming here to work.
Similarly, we allow those same large companies and wealthy individuals to avoid at least £40bn each year through tax avoidance – again to give some context it’s estimated we spend about £1bn per annum on fraudulent benefit claims.
So £1bn vs. £40bn – which should we pursue with more vigour? Which is more likely to yield some return? It’s rumoured that the Chancellor will close some loopholes in the forthcoming budgert – regaining £1bn in unpaid tax. Isn’t that just tokenism? Surely we could get more than that back if only there was a political desire to do so?
Instead, we will continue to see ideological attacks on our public services, including the NHS and police forces – in order to protect the rich. The vote on AV is simply the price to be paid to the Lib Dems for sacrificing everything thay ever stood for in order to gain a little peripheral power.
Whatever the voting system, they’ll be obliterated at the next General Election.
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