Verbal

Can we have a superinjunction to prevent us having to read this sordid catalogue of abasement?

That's a shame, because they're not very good reasons. 1. The idea that the British electorate is too thick to understand AV is patronising. 2. The very problem with FPTP is that is DOESN'T elect people preferred by most voters. This, in fact, is a brilliant reason for supporting AV. 3. Scaremongering - and hardly likely to impress anyone who's witnessed the appalling corruption under FPTP. 4. Untrue. 5. Untrue. 6. Possibly true - but this is what representative democracy means, surely. I see you like to view yourself as cannon fodder rather than a voter 7. Untrue. They don't oppose it themselves for nothing. 8. The worst reason for doing anything is that it's 'always' been this way. There are better ways of doing it - especially in an increasingly corruption ridden British political system.

Yes, behind all the mud-slinging - which does seem to be appreciably worse among the No campaign - is this simple and important issue of representative democracy. The idea that we shouldn't progress to a more democratically representative system astonishes me. The vested interests on the left and right are motivated only be their intense desire to keep power to themselves, which is best done in a system which makes the most of geographic concentrations of voter blocs. That the present system does this at the expense of a more representative system is a scandal. As a result, politicians become entrenched, cosy - and, yes, corrupt. My own view is that a connection CAN be made between FPTP and MPs' corruption - largely because many of those guilty of such practices were in 'safe seats' (what does that term alone tell you about the present system?) - in shires or inner cities. Disrupt an electoral system that delivers 'safe seats' and MPs will be much more on their mettle. That may be a hope more than a fact, but it's better than sticking with a broken status quo, and the disillusion and electoral disengagement that goes with it. The question is, are we democrats or cannon fodder?

Could you post a link to this document please?

If they resort to a superinjunction to protect their identity, then for that reason alone I care.

Who is Imogen? Who is Bryan Riggs?

Dear god. The fact that bad things happen, and that they happen in certain types in certain places (eg sex trafficking in Moldova, bride trafficking in India, bonded labour in Dubai, etc) does NOT mean we should just sit back and accept it. If you give in to that corrupted logic, we'd never have abolished slavery. The fact, incidentally, that slavery (as one example) is now more extant than when it was abolished in the 18th century means we constantly have to be alert against the dangerous thought process that goes: 'yes, sh!t happens, but accept it, it's the way of the world.'

Things have changed since the late 1700s.

So it's CB's argument versus the alleged reputation of your 'accredited' (!) expert? As dune says (good grief am I writing this?) CB is right. It is AV, and the tiny details of procedural difference are of no importance to the general argument - the same broad principles apply in the Tory election and that proposed under AV. Norton is merely being a Tory apparatchik with this hair-splitting line - but you seem to have boxed yourself in with your belief in his god-like status. If the No campaign wins, it will be a bad day for democracy in this country, which has witnessed a slow decline as a disillusioned and growingly cynical electorate withdraw still further from the electoral process. At least part of that disillusion has to do with a voting system that delivers so little in the way of truly 'representative' democracy.

If it's unconditional, she needn't worry about 'firm' and 'insurance' choices then, and there's no long summer wait and nail-biting few hours in August when the A-Level results come out. As you say, by getting in this year, she won't face the extortionate fees, this year or in subsequent years. I would just emphasise when she registers that she's residentially a 'Home/EU' student, otherwise you might get a hell of a sticker shock. I'd still go for Loughborough. It's very highly regarded as a university and a department. And when it comes to finding a job, a more established university like Loughborough will count for more than a post-92 (sad but true). Most of all, though, she needs to be comfortable with her choice.

Loughborough. Nottingham Trent is a post-92 University and will struggle under the new fees regime, especially in subjects like Fine Art. Even if that didn't happen, Loughborough is a FAR better choice. Did she get a conditional offer? Is it the same for both universities?

Quite astoundingly wrong trousers. The fact - if it is - that the majority of will not take part in the referendum, just as they did not take part in the last election, is a cause for real concern about the health of democracy in this country. And clearly one of the key reasons for cynicism and disillusion with politics is the modern version of rotten boroughs that FPTP has helped create. The irony is that the very cynicism expressed on here by the predominantly grumpy No's is, beneath it all, a fatalistic belief is the general hopelessness and disengagement of British (especially English) politics. If the No's were to find a way of rising above their less-than-brilliant advocacy of this hopelessness, then they might see some improvement and greater electoral involvement. It's at least worth a try, isn't it? And at least worth more than the present FPTP, which causes ever greater popular withdrawal from the electoral process and politics itself.

Which proves my point. Nowhere there does it say that Norton is Britain's 'foremost constitutional expert'. Read more carefully - or google or furiously - next time, Wes. (Clue: even if we accept their smoke-blowing terms, 'Parliament' does not equal 'constitution'. HUGE difference!

Yes, baldly, Wes - a word in the English language, unlike 'miscomprehend'. Now where's that link demonstrating that Norton is 'THE foremost British constitutional expert'?

Bogdanor the darling of the Left? Are you KIDDING?! Anyway, where's the link, Wes? I want to know who other than you thinks that Norton is 'THE foremost British constitutional expert'. I didn't 'miscomprehend' (sic) your claim - you made it as baldly and funnily as that.

Then please stand over there by that wall.

Correct. Thank you comrade Sergei.

Do give it a rest, Wes. If he has really been described as 'the foremost authority on the British constitution', at least try and find a reliable source. (You won't). I'll break the bad news to Vernon Bognador, who is far more eminent than Norton, and whose college (King's) only goes so far as to describe him as 'one of Britain's foremost' constitutional experts. Bogdanor is in another league to Norton - whose influence on the right has only, it seems, to do with the fact that so few academics would stoop to calling themselves 'right-wing'. Oh, and academia is loaded to overstuffed with people whose work is is supposed to fit the claim: 'world authority'. Apart from blogging, what's he actually done that comes close to someone like Bogdanor (or a rather long list of others I could mention)? You used the hilarious claim that Norton is 'the foremost' etc., presumably because you thought you were playing some kind of trump card. It's a bit more like The Joker. Here's Bogdanor's bio: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/people/b/vernon-bogdanor

No, you don't understand. Norton is 59th on the right. So he's starting from the huge intellectual disadvantage of being right-wing. I calculate that this means he's probably ranked about 5,890th among British constitutional experts. I'll PM Wes Tender suggesting he amend accordingly.

But why is it 'a perfectly good plan'? This is not about that hoary old canard of 'presentation'. It's just a mash-up of incredibly bad ideas - and by 'ideas' I mean the absence of them. To put it in terms a little closer to your home, a central plank of the reforms, if applied to the banking sector, would mean that merchant bankers' investment decisions would be vetted and approved by a local bank manager in Eastleigh.

Thinner ones, I think. Can't really tell.

I think what Deppo might be getting at is that your claim for Norton being 'THE foremost' (!) constitutional expert is a tiny bit funny. Even the Torygraph ranks him - a professor of government at the august University of Hull - no higher than 'the 59th most influential person on the right of British politics.'

I'm sure that's true. But then why the **** doesn't your galumphing hero Lansley do something about it instead of introducing 'reforms' that hand managerial decisions over experienced in-house clinicians to outside, less talented and remote GPs, and then parcelling off chunks of the NHS to similarly inefficient and remote (+ greedy) private companies. As waiting lists soar - which they have been since the Tories came to some sort of power - Lansley's widely acknowledged (even by Cameron) screw up is already having the combined effect of massively depressing staff morale, forcing casualty patients to wait ever longer for desperately needed treatment, causing organisational chaos, and providing yet more opportunities for private-company grafters to cream off easy profits at virtually no benefit to patient care. Getting rid of middle managers is one thing. Destroying the NHS in order to do that is the height of a kind of stupidity that (Lansley aside) no one even in your beloved party is prepared to defend.