David Cameron:
“I just feel it, in my gut, that AV is wrong. Politics shouldn’t be some mind-bending exercise.
British people are pretty thick. I mean, have you seen them? I seriously doubt they understand the whole “tick the party you want in government” thing - how are they going to understand they can actually vote for their views with this system. Given that we’ve slashed education funding, it’s unlikely we’re gonna end up with a whole lot of people who can understand anything about politics, which is how we like it. Nice and stupid. Means we don’t have to say anything meaningful to get them to vote for us.
“It’s about what you feel in your gut – about the values you hold dear and the beliefs you instinctively have. And I just feel it, in my gut, that AV is wrong.
Gut feeling as a way to decide who should be in power. So a knee-jerk reaction is what we’re looking for, we don’t want Brits having to look at the policies of the parties - we want them to vote tribally.
“There are three big problems with AV that strike at the heart of how I believe our democracy should work. First, I believe power should lie with the people – and AV would take some of that power away.
I’m not going to explain why it takes power away because obviously it doesn’t. All you need to do is vote once to get the exact same vote as you would under FPTP, so the system doesn’t take any power away from the individual. But this is some scary sounding rhetoric. Hopefully people will be scared enough not to question the assertion.
“Second, I believe there should be real accountability between the pledges politicians put in their manifestos and the action they take in government.
Because this is obviously the case now. Also it’s easy for me, we didn’t put any actual pledges in the Conservative manifesto, so it looks like we’ve stuck to it pretty closely.
“AV would damage that chain of accountability. And third, I believe in the principle of one person, one vote.
I have no actual reason for saying no to AV except it would make us work harder to retain those safe seats.
“If you want a system that makes your politicians accountable. “If you want a system that enshrines the principle of one person, one vote. “You must vote on May 5th, and you must vote No to AV. “The biggest danger right now is that Britain sleepwalks into this second-rate system, waking up on May 6th with a voting system that damages our democracy. “We must not let that happen. So we’ve got to get out there and fight, and get out there and win.”
Voting for something is like sleep-walking because all the people voting YES are all asleep. Let’s keep Britain’s electoral system thoroughly in the dark ages!