In case you were wondering why the BBC are so clearly in favour of AV

The BBC's promotion of the Alternative Vote has been clear to anyone watching, listening or reading their coverage of the story, Craig's piece at Biased-BBC being a good analysis of just one example, but many are asking why? Surely the Labour party are split on this matter so why are the BBC so decided? Then Vince Cable (government loyalist (?)) explained it with his comments this morning that voting for AV would end Tory dominance; what more reason does a true BBC person need to support AV than that?

The one hundred and twentieth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's winner is Boris Johnson for the title of this piece in The Telegraph -

'AV was a last gasp from Gordon Brown's bunker – and it's a gigantic fraud

We would be mad to adopt a system that is less fair than the one we already have'

AV a mad, bad idea - "No shit, Sherlock". However I believe that with the BBC behind the Yes campaign, AV will be in place for the general election after next unless a Conservative government lead by a leader with principles gets into power at the next general election. That requirement looks like it excludes David Cameron, so who should it be?

If the No to AV campaign want to win in the upcoming referendum, just use this one line

'Gordon Brown could still be PM under AV'

Conservative Future have more details but I think that headline should be enough, unless of course the BBC manage to completely rehabilitate Gordon Brown's reputation by May.

The one hundred and nineteenth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's prize goes to this tweet:

'@MrHarryCole Harry Cole

RT @carrieapples: Yes campaign don't actually want AV - they just see it as a convenient stepping stone to yet more changes to how we vote.'

Yes to AV campaigners really want PR, who would have thought that? "No shit, Sherlock"

And that is why Proportional Representation is not necessarily more democratic

The BBC are reporting that:

'Lib Dem MPs should have a veto on policies put forward by the coalition government, the party's deputy leader says, as the coalition reaches its 100th day in power.'

Remember that the next time someone sings the praises of proportional representation as a voting system, the small parties gain too much power over the large ones - why else do you think the Lib Dems are so in favour?

The BBC and the Alternative Vote system and the missing fact

The BBC's report on Labour's plans to introduce a referendum on the Alternative Vote voting system does manage to include this line

"Labour pledged a referendum on electoral reform in its 1997 election manifesto but the idea was kicked into the long grass by Tony Blair after his landslide victory."

But do not mention the Jenkins Commission which was set-up to look into the various alternatives to the First Past The Post voting system. Here's what The Jenkins Commission concluded re the Alternative Vote system:

"The Commission's conclusions from these and other pieces of evidence about the operation of AV are threefold. First, it does not address one of our most important terms of reference. So far from doing much to relieve disproportionality, it is capable of substantially adding to it. Second, its effects (on its own without any corrective mechanism) are disturbingly unpredictable. Third, it would in the circumstances of the last election, which even if untypical is necessarily the one most vivid in the recollection of the public, and very likely in the circumstances of the next one too, be unacceptably unfair to the Conservatives. Fairness in representation is a complex concept, as we have seen in paragraph 6, and one to which the upholders of FPTP do not appear to attach great importance. But it is one which, apart from anything else, inhibits a Commission appointed by a Labour government and presided over by a Liberal Democrat from recommending a solution which at the last election might have left the Conservatives with less than half of their proportional entitlement. We therefore reject the AV as on its own a solution despite what many see as its very considerable advantage of ensuring that every constituency member gains majority acquiescence."

Might this be a pertinent point for an unbiased news agency to recall? Does not recalling this fact lead one to think that the BBC might not be entirely impartial in this as in so many political matters?

Gordon Brown is suddenly in favour of the Alternative Vote system for electing MPs, why?

The Report of the Independent Commission on the Voting System of 1998 concluded its discussion of the Alternative Vote system thus:

"The Commission's conclusions from these and other pieces of evidence about the operation of AV are threefold. First, it does not address one of our most important terms of reference. So far from doing much to relieve disproportionality, it is capable of substantially adding to it. Second, its effects (on its own without any corrective mechanism) are disturbingly unpredictable. Third, it would in the circumstances of the last election, which even if untypical is necessarily the one most vivid in the recollection of the public, and very likely in the circumstances of the next one too, be unacceptably unfair to the Conservatives. Fairness in representation is a complex concept, as we have seen in paragraph 6, and one to which the upholders of FPTP do not appear to attach great importance. But it is one which, apart from anything else, inhibits a Commission appointed by a Labour government and presided over by a Liberal Democrat from recommending a solution which at the last election might have left the Conservatives with less than half of their proportional entitlement. We therefore reject the AV as on its own a solution despite what many see as its very considerable advantage of ensuring that every constituency member gains majority acquiescence."

Now do you see why Gordon Brown is suddenly in favour of the Alternative Vote system - "unacceptably unfair to the Conservatives". The Jenkins Commission decided that

"Fairness... inhibits a Commission appointed by a Labour government and presided over by a Liberal Democrat from recommending a solution which at the last election might have left the Conservatives with less than half of their proportional entitlement."

Gordon brown is of course not governed by any sense of "fairness" and so can and will push a voting system that is most likely to help the Labour Party keep a Conservative party out of power or at least allow him to portray the Conservatives as anti-democratic. Although how Gordon Brown can keep a straight face whilst portraying anyone else as anti-democratic is beyond me.