Quoted from brian

This worthy candidate, according to the graph above was returned to parliament by Newbury's worthy voters.

And his great grandson is now Prime Minister.

Just heard some 'expert' on the BBC news say that an analysis of the last election suggests that AV would have given the Lib Dems 32 more seats (a long way short of the 100 my guesswork approach suggested).   But he did make an interesting point - that this would have made a Labour/LibDem coalition practicable.

Returns from the doorstep tonight: only one in ten favour a switch to AV. That was in Clay Hill ward, and what seems to be happening is support is quickly moving to the No camp.

Quoted from richard.garvie

Returns from the doorstep tonight: only one in ten favour a switch to AV. That was in Clay Hill ward, and what seems to be happening is support is quickly moving to the No camp.

Maybe poeople have been reading the leaflets falling through the letter box?

Quoted from 78

Maybe poeople have been reading the leaflets falling through the letter box?

Possibly, I personally feel that the Yes camp have not been able to convince people of the need to change. The No argument is very simple. The Yes campaign needs something equally as simple and effective.

Quoted from richard.garvie

Possibly, I personally feel that the Yes camp have not been able to convince people of the need to change. The No argument is very simple. The Yes campaign needs something equally as simple and effective.

I think you'll find that having looked at the two options, people have realised FPTP is the better system of the two.

Quoted from 78

I think you'll find that having looked at the two options, people have realised FPTP is the better system of the two.

That may well be the case. I said from the outset that I was probably going to back the no to av campaign, simply because I believe that the person with the most votes first time around should win. If we get AV, Labour will gain from it in places like Newbury, but for me it should be what is the fairer system, not what you can get from it.

If you had to keep FPTP or change it to something else, what would you like to see? I think FPTP is probably my preference of the various sytems based on what I have seen when browsing online. I like the concept of one vote, one person and the fact that whoever gets the most votes wins.

I also believe that the fairer system is the better system - but I think that AV is fairer than FPTP.  Not as fair as PR, but fairer.

I believe that parliament as the representative assembly that governs our country should better reflect the political support from the electorate - no more governments elected by only 40% of those voting.

If I didn't already prefer AV I would be swung towards it by the dreadful scaremongering tactics of the NO campaign - all this b*****ks about the 4th place candidate winning the seat and the tearing up of manifestos as soon as the election is over (as if this doesn't happen already).

Cameron's support for FPTP would also push me towards AV - this is the man that is so convinced by democracy that he has created 117 peers in a year in order to pad out the House of Lords with his yes men.

Sure, AV is more likely to result in coalition governments - is that really so bad?  

The problem I see is that a certain amount of the electorate are thick and don't understand AV, so will vote for what they know.

Quoted from blackdog

Sure, AV is more likely to result in coalition governments - is that really so bad?

Some might argue is it fair for a coalition to exist between the team that won and the team that come third.

I'm one of those that think considering all the crap that went on, Labour, in terms of share of the vote, didn't do as bad as they might have deserved.  I think had people not seemingly deserted Labour for Lib Dem, it would have been close.

Quoted from Greenham Common

Some might argue is it fair for a coalition to exist between the team that won and the team that come third.

Following the FPTP argument I guess you could say that the Tories should have been allowed to run the country because they won more votes and more seats than anyone else.  I happen to think it is better that MPs representing 59.1% of the electorate are running the country than the previous government where Labour won complete control with only 35.2% of the electorate supporting them (less than the Tories got in the last election).

Coalitions form around parties that find they can work together on a compromise programme - it so happens this means 1st and 3rd this time, if the Tories had managed to win another dozen seats it would probably have been the Tories and the DUP in charge.