Verbal

Is this a joke?

I don't owe you an apology but a vote of thanks (delivered, as per AV, as a last choice). I use you to develop some of my key, and very important, political ideas, which are then published to glowing reviews in New Left Review and the London Review of Books. I could credit you as 'that ***t on the football forum' if you like, or is that too on the nose?

My point is that with the electorate's greater engagement in the political process, the noddy parties like UKIP and the BNP, who have ALWAYS been little more than vehicles for protest votes, would fall away.

It's not a paradox at all, just simple logic. The overwhelming reason people give for supporting the BNP is their feeling of disengagement and disillusion from the political process - and FPTP is fatally implicated in this. It's actually why the BNP opposes AV - they WANT a corrupt and broken system that disenfranchises people to continue, because that's the core of their 'protest' support. A more representative form of democracy at the ballot box would diminish support for the BNP and other extremists - and they damned well know it. So contrary to the scaremongers in the No campaign, the BNP would struggle to get a look-in in AV. Vote for AV; vote against extremists. (And also, unlike the No campaign, actually do something radical - trust the electorate.)

I don't think the yes campaign was exactly waiting with baited breath. Go on Sergei, surprise yourself, make yourself happy, and do something that brings joy to others. Vote yes, and drag Wes 'I don't want to talk about it any more' Tender in with you.

That's it then. 'Yes' it is.

His birthplace has never been in doubt among the sane, non-racist majority in the US.

This thread has made my afternoon. Keep it up Turkish.

That phrase is like a curtain the No campaign dare not look behind - because if they did they'd find an electorate disillusioned by the political process, about being disenfranchised in 'safe seats' (latter-day rotten boroughs), and marginalised by politicians whose security in their own safety means they start scamming the system to pay for their moats. And FPTP stands as a guilty contributor to all that. AV won't be an overnight cure, but it is the start of a long process of reform in a country which by its nature has evolved its constitutional changes rather than go for full-scale revolution.

Any democracy that leaves its electorate feeling as disenfranchised and disillusioned as our is needs to find ways of improving things. What's so annoying about the No campaign is its habit of using the very disengagement with the electoral process as some sort of satisfaction indicator. Are you really trying to tell us that the reason that vast numbers of people don't vote in this country is because they've been happy with politicians and the political process?

Do you really approve of such shocking distortions?

Ah, the depressed, foetal comfort of spiteful cynicism. You sound two pints short of a personality. Cheer up.

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.