Yes or No -AV referendum May 2011

[articul8]

You want to join up with the lib-dems

In no way on any issue other than where democrats/voters/the left have common interests. Everywhere else then campaign hard against them.

You've just said that everyone who i thought would support me is shit and have become a force for evil after not. Stalinism lives in the intern think tanks.

No i haven't - you misunderstood what I said. I respect and will work with lots of people who disagree me on this.

 

[frogwoman]

What a victory. The greens will now know how many voters they have. A far superior option to attacking the coalition at their lib-dem weak base i order to fuck the whole thing up. The greens will know how many votes they really have.

Tell you something if they get behind this bollocks then their assessment of how many voters they have as a result may not be entirely accurate for long, bit like the lib-dems

 

[articul8]

attacking the coalition at their lib-dem weak base i order to fuck the whole thing up..

A no vote won't fuck the whole thing up any more than a yes vote - which would allow voters to switch preferences to crush LDs harder - and virtually wipe them out in Wales and Sccotland. They are fucked whichever way. Whereas a NO vote is a boost for Cameron.

 

[butchersapron]

In no way on any issue other than where democrats/voters/the left have common interests. Everywhere else then campaign hard against them.


No i haven't - you misunderstood what I said. I respect and will work with lots of people who disagree me on this.

Except on the one that is their and the coalitions life-line.

No, i got it very clear. I understood both the form of argument and the content.

 

[frogwoman]

Whereas a NO vote is a boost for Cameron.

No it isn't. Voters really don't like divided governments/parties.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

How is it more disadvantageous than FPTP? It's not necessarily proportional, but it does reduce need for tactical voting, and squeeze of smaller parties. Would I like PR? Yes. WOuld it help to reject the slightest change from FPTP? No.

1. Because it can be even less proportional than FPTP.

2. Does it help to accept a potentially regressive change just because it's the only one on offer? No.

Louis MacNeice

 

[butchersapron]

A no vote won't fuck the whole thing up any more than a yes vote - which would allow voters to switch preferences to crush LDs harder - and virtually wipe them out in Wales and Sccotland. They are fucked whichever way. Whereas a NO vote is a boost for Cameron.

It might, the chances are far higher that it will than a yes vote. People on the ground understand this. And please leave off with the fluttering eyelashes of a yes vote may "allow voters to switch preferences to crush LDs harder" when your whole long term strategy is based on their continued existence and forming a lib-lab coalition. At least be honest when you're lying.

 

[frogwoman]

What a victory. The greens will now know how many voters they have. A far superior option to attacking the coalition at their lib-dem weak base i order to fuck the whole thing up. The greens will know how many votes they really have.

I can't wait although actually i think if the green party got anywhere near power i'd hate them more than i do the lib dems

 

[butchersapron]

I can't wait although actually i think if the green party got anywhere near power i'd hate them more than i do the lib dems

The Greens would have the decency to split. Some of them would become london think tank pluralists putting their individual hobby horses before the wider needs of the w/c.

 

[articul8]

Surely you agree with its aims to at least some extent (or if you don't, think that it will BECOME that party?)

No. I think it occupies an electoral space under a system which makes it almost impossible not to engage with it, and that overcoming it's almost total monopoly over the British left will take people inside and out working together on developing new political forms.

 

[butchersapron]

So you joined a party that you don't agree with on any policies. And you're here telling people here how to vote? Whilst being paid to argue for that vote. You see why people might think that you're a bit of a twat?

 

[Belushi]

Jesus this is desperate stuff

 

[frogwoman]

new political forms.

ugh

 

[Proper Tidy]

Who the fuck are the democrats?

 

[butchersapron]

No. I think it occupies an electoral space under a system which makes it almost impossible not to engage with it, and that overcoming it's almost total monopoly over the British left will take people inside and out working together on developing new political forms.

It's weird how 'engage with it' becomes 'join it' without any fuss whatsoever. Almost as if there can be no other modes of engagement.

 

[butchersapron]

Who the fuck are the democrats?

The people who agree with articul8 - it's the royal we in another form.

 

[frogwoman]

Its impossible not to engage with the tories either, does that mean that we should join them? Deep entryism lol.

 

[articul8]

So you joined a party that you don't agree with on any policies. And you're here telling people here how to vote? Whilst being paid to argue for that vote. You see why people might think that you're a bit of a twat?

I never said I don't agree with them on anything at all! I am in the party that is the most effective local opposition to the LDs, for whom millions of working class people continue to vote, and which has always contained a socialist component. I am not paid to promote any particular party, just a more democratic electoral system. If that makes me a twat, then it just goes to show how utterly irrelevant armchair anarchists and utlra-left sectarians are in the general scheme of things.

 

[butchersapron]

That's the use of the negative royal we. The first inclusive, the second exclusionary. Both based on arrogant thatcherite assumptions.

 

[frogwoman]

I don't think I know anyone who gives a shit about this referendum. In fact I know one person who said it would be a good idea to have AV and they are in the same party as I am.

 

[Proper Tidy]

I never said I don't agree with them on anything at all! I am in the party that is the most effective local opposition to the LDs, for whom millions of working class people continue to vote, and which has always contained a socialist component. I am not paid to promote any particular party, just a more democratic electoral system. If that makes me a twat, then it just goes to show how utterly irrelevant armchair anarchists and utlra-left sectarians are in the general scheme of things.

How much do they pay you? Who pays?

 

[frogwoman]

I don't see how the referendum is relevant, how is having a sligtly different voting system going to be of any use to people who have lost their jobs and are having their lives and homes put at risk with the loss of vital serivces? I mean it's not as though it's even fuckin actual PR ..

 

[frogwoman]

I never said I don't agree with them on anything at all! I am in the party that is the most effective local opposition to the LDs, for whom millions of working class people continue to vote, and which has always contained a socialist component. I am not paid to promote any particular party, just a more democratic electoral system. If that makes me a twat, then it just goes to show how utterly irrelevant armchair anarchists and utlra-left sectarians are in the general scheme of things.

A socialist component which has just come out against this shitty "reform". Do you think the LRC are ultra-left sectarians?

 

[butchersapron]

It's a step back from PR as well - not a step towards. It's ultra-FPTP

 

[frogwoman]

Well exactly!

 

[butchersapron]

A socialist component which has just come out against this shitty "reform". Do you think the LRC are ultra-left sectarians?

Don't worry, a) it's only parts and b) there's a tribalist labourist clique (odd thing for a labour party member to moan about) around John McDonnell that he never trusted anyway.

So they can fuck right off. Which is why he went to their conference. Because of the triablist labour-supporting vibe,.

 

[articul8]

No it isn't -
a) the true extent of disproportionality is masked under FPTP by tactical voting. AV would reveal how many voters had backed parties without representation.
b) a no vote would be seen as an endorsement of the current system, ie that people have no wish to reform it
c) A yes vote on AV would demonstrate public support for voting reform, and to realise PR for the 2nd chamber. A No vote would make the wheels grind even slower.

 

[butchersapron]

Would it pull back the veil? So fucking what? The veil is being pulled back every single day by the cuts your lib-dem mates are forcing through.

 

[articul8]

Don't worry, a) it's only parts and b) there's a tribalist labourist clique (odd thing for a labour party member to moan about) around John Mcdonlell that he never trusted anyway.

So they can fuck right off. Which is why he went to their conference. Because of the triablist labour-supporting vibe,.

wtf? There was a big debate at the LRC conference about the degree to which they should be seeking to organise and include people who aren't members of the Labour party alongside those that are. Unfortunately that motion lost to people who wanted to assert the centrality of organising in the Labour party. Compass are also having an "opening out" debate. This is not such an unusual position. And who is telling anyone to fuck off. I'm not surprised about this. I'll still work with the LRC locally.

 

[frogwoman]

b) a no vote would be seen as an endorsement of the current system, ie that people have no wish to reform it

Huh? Don't they kind of assume that whatever ordinary people think doesn't matter anyway - why would they care about this? Don't you think that it could be taken another way, as a sort of "barometer" of the gov't's performance?