No to AV Voting System

It is unlike me to wait and consider the facts but after giving the matter serious consideration I will be campaigning for a no vote in a referendum on using the Alternative Vote for future General Elections.

The reason why I gave this a lot of thought is that I think there is a lot of scope in both electoral reform. For instance, I believe that the West Lothian question needs addressing, the House of Lords should be an elected Upper Chamber, voting age should be lowered to 16 and there is argument to expriement holding elections on weekends - but the AV voting system is a retrograde step as it is not full PR and a miss mash to appease 'reformers'. I whilst I accept the First Past the Post System isn't perfect it is the best of a bad bunch.

I have received this amusing picture from a friend of mine who is staunchly opposed to AV which I thought I would share:

The Beautiful Game

Most footballers complain that the close season seems to get shorter and shorter for most football fans the weekends between May and August can get rather depressing without their weekly fix of their favourite football team.

This year the close season was only effectively four days as the World Cup kept us occupied until the 11th July and then on the 15th July Motherwell kicked off their season with a Europa League qualifying game against Breidablik (It finished 1-0 to Motherwell for those of you that are interested).

This edition of the World Cup was a disappointment on the whole and certainly not up to the standards of Italy 1990 and France 1998. This could possibly be down to the beach ball used in the competition or perhaps England’s poor performance when optimism was genuinely high following the excellent qualifying campaign. For me, Spain, the best team won but the most exciting team, Germany, finished third.

What the World Cup really showed was how poor, technically, the Premier League is. Even the foreign players who represented nations in the latter stages of the competition were very disappointing. Technically poor the Premier League may be but exciting it certainly is.

As the fallout continues following England’s disastrous performances and limp exit, one body I wouldn’t have expected to jump on the bandwagon is parliament.

In the week following England’s exit no less than six Early Day Motion’s (EDM’s) were tabled. For those who do not know what an EDM is, it is a daily petition which MP’s can register their support to a particular cause. In most cases EDM’s are never debated and are nothing more than Parliamentary graffiti. In 2005, it was estimated that each EDM actually costs the taxpayer £250.00 – at least £1,500.00 wasted!

Upon looking at the EDM’s it more detail it is surprising that signatories to most of these EDM’s come from Southend West MP David Amess and Mike Hancock, Liberal Democrat member for Portsmouth South.

I say I am surprised because they have never once criticized the poor financial state Southend United and Portsmouth are in – clubs in or near their constituencies through an EDM.

Surely for them this has to be more important than the state of the Football Association, English Football and urging FIFA to introduce goal-line technology