Verbal

Sadly, you have a poor grasp of logic and politics it seems, Lord T. If you read back over the thread, you'll find plenty of convincing argument showing how poor turnouts and a sense of disenfranchisement are a consequence, at least in part, of FPTP. I don't recall ANY Yes supporter on here saying the public is 'thick' (how did you come by such a weird conclusion, except presumably to suit your own ill-thought out conclusions?) - only that we need an electoral system that (1) weakens the latter-day rotten boroughs, safe seats, (2) weakens the hold of single-issue, protest-vote parties, and (3) gives everyone a sense that their votes actually count. Have a little think, read the thread again, and get back on here. I have a 'liberal elite' sew-on badge all ready for you.

Thank you. You are very sweet.

Only if you are sweetie. Actually, I'm going to the one on Sat, but no one in their right mind sets foot in that waste of space town we're in on Monday.

Said with a quivering lower lip. Never mind, Sergei will give you a big hug.

No, hate it. Especially right now.

True, of course. But what's your point?

Admit it delldays, you shed a tear when you saw the wedding dress.

Football makes perfect sense. Royals not so much.

Why? Do you need 60 million cuddles?

Then what possible connection do you have to these people that you emote so much about?

So you are a personal friend of Kate and Wills?

Unlike sponging, work-shy royalists, lolling around in front of the telly making weirdly faux-expert comments about wedding dresses, I spent a very productive day getting some work done. Apparently the gushing BBC commentators have been going on about this nonsense being watched on 'five continents'. There are actually six, on this planet at least. So which was the lucky continent that missed out on all this?

That's a bit much scotty. How dare you suggest our royal cap-doffers read something.

Good idea. I just looked up the latest earnings figures for Disneyland Paris - around 245m Euros. So we just merge Buck House and its inhabitants into Madame Tussauds and we're done!

So it seems. A celebratory Botox party is apparently underway on The Only Way is Essex. Get yourself down there now!

From land and property expropriated without compensation in Victorian times.

Off with their heads.

That would be a twelvesome. Or do you mean Chelsy?

Much like the Royal Family then.

Would your Lordship like to reenter the debate on here in some slightly more substantive way? You were given very comprehensive rebuttals to some pretty weak arguments or supporting FPTP. If you've now switched sides as a result, welcome to liberal elite.

Oh dear. Did that not work?

I can see 40 years of hurt coming, so let me put you out of your misery. Combining your avatar with your clear enthusiasm for starting threads like this and the anti-semitism one - all about what you prefer to call 'political correctness' around the subjects of race, ethnicity and religion - led me to the obvious conclusion that the subtext of all this is that you wish to reserve the right to be a racist scumbag without actually being called one. I didn't call you a racist scumbag. How could you possibly be offended by that?

Quite. I blame the OP.

Any psephologist worth their salt - even that Tory nitwit Norton - would tell you that parties like BNP and UKIP are what they define as 'single-issue' parties. They attract, by definition, protest votes, and their fortunes rise and fall with those issues race, Europe, etc). We know it won't galvanise support for single-issue minority parties because AV requires more engagement - politicians with electorate and vice versa. AV may well give greater representation to minority parties with genuine, stable political agendas (like the LibDems and the nationalist parties) - but that's the price of democracy surely worth paying, that people's votes are proportionately represented in elected representatives. At the risk of sounding controversial, the ONLY fair way to vote on the merits or otherwise of AV is not to hold a referendum on it, but to impose it by executive decision. Introduce it for one Parliamentary election and one or two rounds of local elections. THEN have a referendum on AV vs FPTP. That way, people won't be facing a choice between something they know and something they don't. Maybe even the most spooked of No voters, like our doom-laden Lord Tender, would change his mind.

Is this a joke?