Love and Liberty

I’m voting YES! to the Alternative Vote today. I’ve given my top seven reasons already. There’s just one left: a wholly negative reason, like your least favourite candidate on the ballot (who you can leave blank, or have the satisfaction of putting “last”; it works the same). What’s at the bottom? Appropriately, the BNP. Choosing an electoral system just because of how it affects one party is a crappy reason. But face facts: of every voting system ever invented, AV is the best to stop the BNP ever winning; with “first past the post,” they’ve “won” dozens of council seats.

I believe in democracy. I believe AV gives fairer votes – it makes MPs more accountable by giving voters more power. And choosing a system just to stop (or benefit) one party is despicable. It’s undemocratic. It’s basically wanting to rig the election.

But against the BNP, it works.

The Facts: Which Systems Are ‘Best’ For the BNP?

If the British National Party was your sole concern, electoral systems fall into three main categories of how ‘helpful’ they are to the BNP – though, as far as I’m concerned, fighting against them in the ballot box and persuading people it’s wrong to vote for them is always better than trying to rig the system. If they get enough votes, no voting system can stop them winning; if they get too few votes, no voting system will give them a place.

In theory, the most favourable ground for the BNP would be a pure proportional system, like a party list. Give seats exactly in proportion to votes – which in many ways is the most purely democratic system – and even very small parties should get very small representation. In practice, even elections using party lists have hardly ever resulted in BNP seats: they’ve almost always been defeated even in European Parliament elections, and the one time they managed to get a couple of seats it was only by a whisker. Why? Because even in the most ‘favourable’ territory, very, very few people vote for them over an area of any size (and pure PR is only used in big, big areas). And if they don’t get the votes, they can’t get elected. So persuading people not to vote for them works best!

The electoral systems that are sort of middling for the BNP are – ironically – my favourite and my least favourite. STV, the best system, is a little bit more helpful to the BNP because it’s quite proportional… But it’s also a little bit less helpful to the BNP because it’s preferential, so people can gang up and vote for ‘anyone except the BNP’. That means the BNP get hardly any preferences except for first (from the people who actually want them) and then last / none at all (which, as I’ve said, works the same. Using your ‘last’ preference in STV and AV merely means you can be satisfyingly vindictive).

The worst system, “first past the post” or more accurately ‘biggest loser wins’, is the one we have now. And because it doesn’t need a “winner” to get a majority – because, like two thirds of the MPs we have now, most people can vote against the “winner” – the BNP can get in on a split vote as the ‘biggest loser’. And, as I show below, they do.

The very worst system of all for the BNP is the Alternative Vote. It’s simple. That’s because it’s no more proportional than “first past the post,” but it is preferential. That means it’s as hard as the current system for small parties to break through on the one hand, and much harder on the other because it lets votes gang up on the BNP. It could almost be designed to gang up on the least popular party, as I’ve pointed out before, or the least popular candidate, as I’ve shown with AV’s power to throw out crooks.

The BNP is the most hated party by almost everyone who doesn’t actually support them. That means they’re almost certain to be ganged up on and clobbered when preferences are counted under AV. With the Alternative Vote, ‘anyone but the BNP’ is almost built into the system.

The Facts: The BNP Say “No”

That’s why the BNP has been working hard for the No campaign.

I have never quoted the BNP before on this blog. I feel soiled for doing so. But if you want the facts…

Here’s BNP Deputy Chairman Simon Darby:

“We are never going to get our feet under the table under the AV system.”

And here is the latest message about today’s referendum to his supporters from BNP Leader Nick Griffin:

“AV is designed to ensure permanent left-liberal government and is aimed at stopping the BNP.”

The BNP know AV is the biggest institutional threat they will ever face. They are desperate for a “No” vote.

The Facts: “First Past The Post” Has Given the BNP Dozens of Councillors When Most People Voted Against Them

“First past the post” has given the BNP more than thirty times as many elected representatives as every other system used in the UK put together. It is “first past the post” that allows people to be elected with just a fraction of the vote. It is the current system that means that – not just some of the time, but most of the time – the ‘biggest loser wins’.

The first elected representative the BNP ever had was one local councillor, on the Isle of Dogs, in 1993. He was elected by “first past the post” – even though two thirds of people voted against him.

Sadly, they didn’t stop there.

Throughout the 2000s, the BNP made gain after gain with “first past the post”. They won dozens of council seats. Their highest number of councillors at any one time, a couple of years ago, was 58 – but they’ve won more seats than that altogether (thankfully, people often wake up at the following election and they lose them again).

Thanks to “first past the post,” the BNP were elected in 2006 as the main opposition party on Barking and Dagenham Council. Thanks to “first past the post,” the BNP have had councillors in Oldham, Burnley, Blackburn, Calderdale, Stoke-on-Trent, Epping Forest, Solihull, Redditch, Redbridge, Pendle, Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees, Thurrock and more!

Do you still think “first past the post” is bad for the BNP?

Of course, if people didn’t vote for them, no system would give them a seat.

But the reason the BNP love “first past the post” is that in almost every election they’ve ever “won,” most voters didn’t vote BNP. Most people voted against them. But they still “won”.

The first time BNP councillors were elected in Burnley, their average share of the vote was just 28.1%. Yes – that’s right. Nearly 72% of people voted against them – but thanks to “first past the post,” the BNP won. And that’s how they’ve got in, again and again, “winning” dozens of councillors as the biggest loser. Take a look at this chart of one election they “won”.

So how many councillors would the BNP have had – ever – under the Alternative Vote?

Just one. Ever.

AV lets ‘anyone but the BNP’ become not just a slogan, but a reality. It lets every other voter gang up against them perfectly. Under AV, the BNP need to win an absolute majority; and in a democracy, if more than half the votes are for one party, they have the right to win (again – to stop the BNP winning, you should persuade people not to vote for them).

In the Goresbrook ward of Barking in the 2004 local elections, the BNP candidate won 52% of the vote. That’s the only time they have ever won a true majority of voters. So that is the only time they would ever have won with AV.

Experts and campaigners agree – AV would lock the BNP out. And academic research shows they would get no more influence. If you want to rig the system against the BNP, vote YES! to AV.

No To All Those Lies (Part VII) – Who Is It Who Appeals For BNP Votes, Exactly?

The No Campaign have told nothing lies, more lies and a lot more lies on top of that, because they can’t come up with a case in favour of the current “first past the post” system (where usually the biggest loser “wins” when they’re nowhere near the “post” – even, dozens of times, the BNP). Here’s a useful post knocking down a lot of those different lies, including on the BNP. But there’s one lie – and one liar – it’s appropriate to deal with today.

The No-mongers’ liar-in-chief, Conservative Party “Chairman” Sayeeda Warsi, isn’t much of an expert on elections. In fact, she’s lost so many that the only way she’s managed to get into Parliament is by being made a member of the unelected House of Lords. But you may have heard the unelected Baroness Warsi claim that AV could lead to politicians “pandering to extremism” – even though it actually means parties have to appeal to a majority, not a tiny, hateful minority.

As the BNP’s history of council success shows, it’s “first past the post” that lets small, hateful minority parties “win”. Because “first past the post” doesn’t need a majority – it just needs the ‘biggest loser’.

That means that under “first past the post”, if a big party candidate needs only a bit more support to be ahead of the next biggest party – not a majority, just the ‘biggest loser’ – it pays to tell extremist voters, ‘Your nasty little party can’t win, but vote for me and I’ll be almost nasty enough to make you happy’.

Here’s the proof. Before she was unelected Baroness Warsi, she was unsuccessful candidate Sayeeda Warsi, standing for Parliament in Dewsbury in 2005. And here’s what one of her leaflets said, desperately trying to convince enough BNP voters to vote for her to get ahead:

“Are you thinking of voting BNP? Think again.”
“If you vote BNP you are allowing Labour to creep in with more political correctness and uncontrolled immigration and asylum.”
She told BNP voters the Conservatives are
“the only party that can deliver and put you first.”

Which system has let the BNP in with dozens of seats? “First past the post”. Which system encourages big parties to appeal to just a little bit more votes by pandering to vile, evil, homophobic racists like the BNP? “First past the post”. And who proved the case for AV over “First past the post” by not fighting against the BNP, but promising them more of what they wanted? Leading No-monger unelected Baroness Warsi.

Unelected Baroness Warsi was also caught lying on camera here.

Or, in the interests of political balance, Labour dinosaur David Blunkett – who also appealed to BNP voters with his strident anti-immigrant attacks and generally being an illiberal bully when he was Home Secretary – is, of course, also backing “No”. And in a flash of honesty (carefully timed to be too late to make a difference) he’s admitted today that the No-mongers’ figures are all made up. Well, I told you that already!


Not completely convinced yet to vote #Yes2AV? Try 1 of my other YES! reasons. Or 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7…!

Labels: Bigotry, British Politics, Proportional Representation, Referendum

Evil giant spiders! Sarah Jane Smith! Ludicrous action sequences! New Age bollocks philosophy! There’s something for everyone in the latest Doctor Who DVD, Planet of the Spiders. First broadcast from the Fourth of May, 1974 this is the climax to Jon Pertwee’s adventures as the Doctor: not so much an epic as a ‘greatest hits’ mash-up; what was great about Pertwee, and not so great. Yet there’s something so awesome about the way this Doctor faces The Last Enemy that I can forgive the story anything. Oh, and there’s a Mr Clegg who’s destroyed by contact with something hard and blue…

If you loved the late Elisabeth Sladen, this is rather a good story for her. Much of the story is looking back across the Pertwee era, both in reflecting on his Doctor’s character and finishing story arcs begun as long before as 1971’s Terror of the Autons (out next week). But in Sarah Jane Smith, Planet of the Spiders looks forward, too. A companion who does her own investigations, rather than relying on the Doctor (or UNIT); trying not to be spoilery, but a series of sub-plots about possession, which is about to become a Big Thing in the series; and the whole thing feels at times rather like it’s Part Zero of Doctor Who – Robot. Plus, she gets a remarkable array of outfits, starting out both light and businesslike, moving through a vile ensemble that (as if prescient of the arguments over her time zone) combines the worst of the ’70s and ’80s with huge lapels but a red and grey colour scheme; and a strikingly iconic red and white striped top – with a particularly memorable accessory.

That Golden Moment

“Now listen to me. Listen. I haven’t got much time left…”

…Is how the obvious, and terrific, ‘Golden Moment’ opens. But it would be too much of a spoiler to include it in a taster piece like this to get you interested in the DVD. Andrew Skilleter, above, captured the feel of it gorgeously in his cover (above) for the VHS release; and, having known that scene many years before I ever saw the whole story, I’ve loved it since I was a boy. The awesome music might just be composer Dudley Simpson’s finest moment, and for sheer Doctorishness, probably Jon Pertwee’s, too. But if you want to know why it’s such a marvellous scene, click here and scroll down to the end of my article on Doctor Who Magazine’s 200 Golden Moments, or simply watch the climax of Part Six of Planet of the Spiders. Fortunately, there are other scenes that stand out, too.

“I want to see them grovel. I want to see them breaking their hearts. I want to see them eating dirt.”

One of the great things about this story is its range of villains. Of course you’ll be expecting the giant spiders, and they don’t disappoint – well, rarely – as a group of scary, scheming megalomaniacs. But it’s not just fabulous monsters who want to dominate the Universe; there are also villains who are just as memorable for being frighteningly grubby and familiar. The ringleader of these is Lupton, a broken businessman who wants less to rule the world than to get back at the people who bankrupted him. It’s a superb performance that seems altogether real – somehow it’s easier to deal with all that bitterness if it’s about being stuck in a black hole, but it’s quite disturbing if it’s about being sacked. When I was a boy, too, there was a Lipton’s Supermarket in Hazel Grove, and the name was similar enough to make me always associate him with a business that just wasn’t quite big enough to be the big one.

Part-way into Part Three, Lupton – who’s already entered a pact with a giant spider, and who’s established himself from the start as a nasty piece of work in a particularly ’70s way by complaining that Sarah Jane is “Not only a journalist, but a woman journalist!” – explains to what in most stories would merely be his ‘henchman’ just exactly why he’s not going to stop meddling with things he doesn’t understand. He gives the story of his life, from a bright young salesman, to sales director, only to come up against a bigger company: “they deliberately – cold-bloodedly – broke me. I’m still looking for some of the bits.” It’s poisonously well-drawn, seeing himself “taking over that firm… taking over the country – the entire, stinking world…!” There’s no other character for whom the spider on his back’s so plain. His sidekick Barnes’ reaction, too, is utterly believable: weary, sad and underplayed, he wonders, “Perhaps you’ve gone mad – hearing voices, talking to yourself… Perhaps I’ve gone mad, too.” And yet he carries on being drawn into evil because he’s out of his depth and ‘just can’t stop himself’.

Something Else To Look Out For (It’s Barry Letts)

My feelings about Jon Pertwee’s Doctor are complicated, and I can’t pretend that his final year as the Doctor has ever been a favourite of mine; it seems very tired, while the reinvigorated season a year later is one of the best the series has ever had. Yet while Planet of the Spiders meanders a bit, for me it’s the best of that lacklustre season and an appropriate cap to the Third Doctor’s era. Never has a ‘megamix’ been more endearing. The villains are hissable, the monsters are frightening (if occasionally feeble), the Earth-based scenes are as down to Earth as they’ve ever been while the alien ones look cheap and dull, the effects range from striking to strikingly bad, and the Pertwee greatest hits run from ‘ludicrously extended vehicle chases’ to ‘great big long-shot tumbling fight scenes’ then ‘talking in proverbs with wise old man’, and yet somehow it works, perhaps because Pertwee, at the end, confronts his own ego and is movingly fragile. Even his name-dropping for once serves the plot. I’m always disappointed Jo Jones’ cameo is only in the book, though – certainly worth picking up for that, for the Spiders’ feasts, and for Elisabeth Sladen doing a terrific job of reading it on CD.

As much as Pertwee’s finale, this is the culmination of outgoing producer Barry Letts’ work after five years in the top job (he had one more story to go, but very much a handover). And if ever you want to see Barry at work, for good and bad, this is it. He’s not only producer of Planet of the Spiders but the director and uncredited co-writer – the only time in Doctor Who history that one person exercises such complete creative control over a story and, as you might expect, the result has much to admire and much to disagree with. There’s much that’s familiar, from a cameo from Barry’s favourite monsters to references to his previous scripts: John Dearth as Lupton swapping roles after The Green Death, for example, from the disembodied intelligence sharing the main human villain’s mind to the reverse, and a no doubt unintended reversal of his low-point The Time Monster where now it’s the early episodes on Earth that are rather intriguing and the ‘other’ place that’s not much cop, until we get to the big monster deep within the labyrinth of tunnels, which this time is brilliant!

The story has a remarkable narrative and philosophical drive, though I don’t entirely agree with that philosophy and nor, from the extras, did the script editor (who removed a mention of “prayers” for the book) – fortunately, once this story’s over the Doctor ignores the series-defeating ‘moral’ that going out and searching for knowledge is bad, and again becomes a wanderer in time and space. ‘Just be sheep,’ K’Anpo seems to imply, yet we’re told what happens to them on Metebelis Three. Try to ignore any actors pretending to pretend to be “Tibetan,” too. It feels rather odd for Doctor Who to be endorsing a religion, yet this is even more a Buddhist parable than Kinda and Snakedance, each of which resemble it in different ways (while Turn Left’s “There is something on your back” isn’t a patch on here). On top of that specific message, it does seem to suggest that Barry’s approach to Doctor Who might be that any old bollocks is true, and suddenly seems curiously anti-science. And yet, and yet… It’s the first episode that’s the most explicitly New-Agey, and that’s probably the most gripping and successful of the story on its own terms. There are few Doctor Who adventures that open with such endearingly comfortable scenes as the Doctor and the Brigadier out for an evening down the music hall, with terrible puns – at which the Brig has never looked more long-suffering – and a “very fit” dancer, at whom he perks up considerably while the Doctor sags (from the days before he was as straight as every other leading man). Yet to undercut the comfy atmosphere, all this is intercut with strange goings-on to stylish music and rapid close-ups. This time, Barry’s direction seems inspired in parts. That continues through the episode as the mystery deepens and Mike and Sarah Jane drive through flickering sunlight, only to be shocked by a sudden attack (or are they?).

Part Two may go a little over the top in indulging Pertwee with a deliriously Bond-a-like chase across six different vehicles, but it has a joy to it – and inspired a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek trailer on UK Gold, with the lovely Glen Allen’s voiceover (he put the trailer together too, he tells me, and he returns to narrate the compelling ‘Making of’ feature here). The special effects are more of a mix. There are some inspired moments, notably as people teleport between locations – one staggering as if finding his footing, while we move with another rather than see her vanish – and the Great One has a majesty that transcends some of the technical limitations (though while Pertwee’s final moments are poignant, there’s never been a more underwhelming ‘regeneration’ effect). Barry Letts’ unparalleled faith in CSO (now called greenscreen, or probably yellowscreen in this case) comes badly unstuck on Metebelis Three, however, as giant photos do not an alien planet make. Instead, it relies on the actors to inspire conviction – and here, too, something goes horribly wrong halfway through Part Three, with the Earthbound intensity giving way to performances as wooden as their faux-Tibetan-cum-Wild-West huts (the winner: a ‘desperate’ wife whose face and tone give her all the passion of a Cabbage Patch robot). For the famously “blue planet,” the story becomes horribly beige for a couple of saggy episodes in the middle, with even the Doctor reduced to asking for a machine ‘he prepared earlier’ when the plot gets stuck. And it has to be said that Barry also trips up badly by having – in a story where Sarah Jane and the all-female Spiders are the main driving forces – our ‘heroic’ revolutionaries ordering the “womenfolk” to stay behind because women aren’t up to it (“There’s nothing ‘only’ about being a Queen Spider!” chips in my beloved).

The Spiders Eight-Legs Spiders

On the bright side, people’s “Voldemort” reaction every time the Doctor or Sarah Jane say “Spiders” is hugely entertaining, as are the coldly bitchy Spiders themselves. I’ve banged on about the music, tension and majestic madness of the Great One, who still makes my hairs stand on end as she terrifies the Doctor, but her sisters are all fabulous, too. Their Council Chamber may look like a plastic kitchen (and I felt for the designer when she disappointedly explained why in the DVD’s ‘Making of’), but their arrogance and intrigue are gripping. In them, the story’s off-kilter, non-technological approach really shines; they’re so different to the Doctor that you can see why they’re such a potent enemy, and their plan to travel back in time to rule the Earth that their ancestors came from seems less like a contrived time paradox than a different, hostile version of history to the Time Lord’s.

Added to all that, UNIT Captain Mike Yates’ surprisingly interesting story arc concludes; joining the series in Terror of the Autons, though the DVD range is as yet missing the rather important step of Invasion of the Dinosaurs, this mostly gives him an impressive send-off. Starting this of all stories with Mike Yates making a ‘new life’ by striking out on his own away from UNIT to hang about with Sarah Jane and do something vaguely bohemian is a remarkably subtle and clever piece of foreshadowing, even if there’s no particular reason for her to be his friend and confidant (nor Tom Baker’s Doctor, we might say these days). I say “mostly,” as he rather peters out, his role as ‘army friend’ taken by the Brigadier towards the end of the story – though we all love the Brig far more, obviously. One echo of Terror of the Autons that wasn’t to be is the final cliffhanger; sadly, it’s a bit of a mess. Various behind-the-scenes reasons help explain it, but not only is the ‘peril’ an especially forced one (with a character so amazingly resistant to evil Spider-zappage that it’s almost as if the ‘rules’ are changing with every scene), there’s a far better payoff begging to be used if you spot it, a few minutes into Part Six: watch Sarah Jane, and think how Barry could have created a far more satisfying mirror of Terror of the Autons’ first cliffhanger…

And to finish, one of this two-disc set’s host of diverting special features is indeed a trailer for Spearhead From Space and Terror of the Autons, released in a double-pack next week – and a particularly exciting one it is, too. I’ve mentioned the excellent ‘Making of’, The Final Curtain, and there’s an edited ‘feature-length’ version of the story to see from a ’70s repeat: it’s rather jolly, and fascinating to see what’s cut and what wasn’t (the big chase, for example – what’s the Word Up, Brigadier? “Put your hands in the air.” Like you don’t care), with, unusually, each of the episodes shortened by roughly the same amount, and the most jarring cut being most of the first few minutes, reducing the mystery but catapulting you straight into the story. Add a Now and Then feature, a Photo Gallery, splendid text notes (from a Dalek), interviews with one of the actors and with Barry on his directing, and there’s a lot to this release. There’s what promises to be an impressive commentary, too… But I have to admit I’ve not been able to bring myself to listen to it yet. I know that it was recorded a few years ago, and that poor Gareth Hunt – who had a pre-The New Avengers role here, in revolutionary moustache – died just a few days before he was due to join in with it. Well, I look at the billing for the commentary they did record and Nick Courtney and Barry Letts have gone too, now… And the day after this DVD was released, a fortnight ago, Lis Sladen was taken from us, far too young. So I think it’ll take a little while before I’d not have to guard against sniffles listening to it.

Labels: Doctor Who, DVD Details, Jon Pertwee, Reviews, Sarah Jane Smith, The Brigadier

My 7th reason to vote YES! to the Alternative Vote tomorrow is quite negative again; that’s what often happens with lower preferences. But as negative campaigning sometimes works… For goodness’ sake, just look at the No campaign! The BNP. Rupert Murdoch. Labour’s authoritarian dinosaurs, with all the Labour reformers voting YES! And most Conservatives – with all the No campaign’s vast cash outspending change coming from the usual Tory millionaires. Why on Earth should the people who have always screamed to stop any change in the history of ever be lying to make you scared of change? It’s a toughie. And why is 0.036% suddenly the biggest number in the world? Read on…

If you made a list of Britain’s most conservative, nasty, authoritarian, reactionary, greedy, tribal, power-hungry, illiberal, unpleasant, wealthy, self-interested, fearmongering, warmongering political rip-off merchants… But look! There’s no need to – the No campaign have saved you the trouble. It’s them.

And from their side, what’s the biggest threat they can muster? ‘We’re afraid of the Liberal Democrats!’ Well, I’m tempted to say, it’s about bloody time! But if you want big scary beasties – why not look to the ones who’ve always had all the power and all the money, not the little fighters who are trying to change it?

Rich Tories

The No campaign have got so many sleazy Tory millions rolling in to back them and so many lying newspapers on their side that David Cameron’s been ashamed every time he’s been asked to take responsibility for it all – even though it’s his party and his donors who’ve created the whole mud-slinging pile of bollocks. No wonder he’s been so desperate to keep under wraps who paid for posters like the infamous ‘be very scared, or the baby gets it’.

So congratulations to those Tory reformers who stick to their principles and support a YES! to the system that the Conservative Party uses in its own elections, even when most of them pretend it’s too good for the rest of us! I wish I could say the same about the honesty of their Leader, but here’s Andrew Rilstone on why David Cameron is a liar.

Poor Ed Miliband

It’s a shame that the Labour Party is split down the middle, as it is so often – or we’d long since have had the referendum they promised, had absolute power to deliver, but never did – between progressives and nasty old conservatives. I feel sorry for poor Ed Miliband, a prisoner of the dinosaurs stomping around him. The Labour Leader, Ed Miliband, supports the Alternative Vote – but most of his MPs want to keep their noses in the trough and ignore him. The last Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, put AV in their General Election Manifesto last year – but most of the MPs elected on that manifesto are ignoring it, too. And the former Labour Leader Neil Kinnock is doing what poor Ed can’t and laying into the Labour dinosaurs who are helping the Tory campaign for a crooked, broken old system that’s helped the Tories more than every other party.

If you’re a Labour voter, why not vote YES! to help poor Ed Miliband?

Paddy Says – Make the Dinosaurs Extinct!

The greatest former Leader for me is still Paddy Ashdown. Unlike the sleazy No-mongers who pretended to speak for our armed forces in claiming our soldiers hate democracy, he’s been a soldier under fire. So forgive me for quoting what he said a couple of weeks ago – it packs a punch:

“I’ve been in politics for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with people of any age getting involved, from a teenager to a centenarian. We can all make a difference.

“But when almost every politician at the top of the ‘No’ campaign was already a dinosaur by the time I was first elected to Parliament in 1983, you have to wonder about the freshness of their arguments.

“Think of the changes Britain has seen during my lifetime – and theirs:

“We’ve joined the European Union. We’ve established a Parliament in Scotland and an Assembly for Wales. We’ve voted in proportional representation elections for both – a far bigger change than AV – and the sky hasn’t fallen in.

“And government, always the last to change under Tory and Labour alike, has often been the last to wake up to the incredible social changes that have changed Britain for the better.

“So when those old Labour and Tory hacks gang up to tell you to be afraid of a long-overdue but frankly much smaller change, it tells you far more about their fears than those of the British public. Of course they’re against change. They want to hang on to the present system because it makes life easier for politicians. Well I am more interested in a system that makes life better for the voters!

“I have always tried to appeal to the politics of hope. But too many votes have been decided by fear – and that’s all that the ‘No’ campaign dinosaurs can offer.

“Not one of them can stand up to say ‘Vote positively for First Past the Post – we know it’s a wonderful system!’ They know it’s broken – but they also know it gave them unbroken power – and that’s why they want to hang on to it.

“What could they say? ‘First Past the Post gives you strong government.’ Like that of John Major or Gordon Brown, then? ‘First Past the Post protects you from coalition governments.’ Well I happen to think that coalition Governments are not bad for the country – they’re good for it. But if you disagree then think of this: Australia has had this system for 70 years and has had fewer hung parliaments than Britain has?

“The ‘Yes’ campaign has a powerful message of hope – yes, the current system is broken. But you don’t have to be afraid that nothing can change, and you don’t have to be afraid of that change – take courage! We’re offering a change for the better.

“Here are some facts: in the last twenty years, the governments elected in British General Elections under First Past the Post have had the smallest shares of the vote in our nation’s history, down as far as absolute power on just 35% of the vote. That’s not a popular mandate, when two-thirds of the people voting vote against you.

“The Alternative Vote would make sure that every MP has the support of a majority of their voters. It wouldn’t make every government perfect. But it would give every MP at least the firm democratic basis that so many of them lack today.

“No wonder people are so turned off by politics, when most of them get MPs they voted against.

“At last, the Liberal Democrats in government are delivering a referendum to let the people – no that politicians – decide on making a positive change to a system we’ve said is broken for decades.

“The power for change is in your hands. Will you have the courage to take it?

“Don’t let old fears decide your vote. With the Alternative Vote, there’s hope that things can be better.

“Take courage. Make that change.”

Listen to Paddy. Send an AV asteroid crashing down on that bunch of frightened old dinosaurs lying to you because they’re terrified that the rotten system that put them into power for so long is about to crumble.

No To All Those Lies (Part VI) – A Big Lie, But They’re So Crap the Biggest Number They Can Make Up Is 0.036%

All those Conservative millions have made it much easier for the No Campaign to send out so many lies, lies and more lies, while the poor little YES! campaign’s been strapped for cash. And who but the reactionary millionaires wanting to hang onto a system that gives them more power than their votes deserve who make up and keep repeating lies about the cost of a “Yes” – to distract attention from how much “No” can afford?

With the usual breathtaking chutzpah of a wholly negative campaign, the “No” millionaires made up a number, doubled it, then told everyone it was true. They make up numbers that everyone from the Electoral Commission to the Australian Government, which has been elected by AV for a century, tell you are absolute fiction (electronic vote counting machines? No-one needs them. Totally made up. They do use them in the USA, of course… To count the “first past the post” system we have now. It’s a good job the YES! campaign aren’t as big liars as the No-mongers, or they’d claim ‘keeping the current system means you’ll have to pay for vote-counting machines, even though we don’t use them and never have and no-one wants them!’). And then they tell us Britain can’t afford the numbers they’ve just made up.

They say that a “Yes” would cost £250 million (actually, they can’t add up even their own lies, but I’ll come to that in a minute), and that “We can’t afford it”. Well, even apart from their figure being almost completely made up… Is that the best they can do?

Not only is it a big lie – it’s a really crap lie.

The British Government is to spend £701 billion this year. The huge, immense, bankrupting, unaffordable figure that the No sleazy millions are scaring you with… Is just 0.036% of that spend.

Seriously, that’s not just a stupid and obvious lie, but a rubbish one. ‘An extra 0.036% of Government spending will bankrupt you all!’ Do they think nobody can count? And do they think we’ll all be swayed by the idea that dictatorship is cheaper than democracy?

And, as a third of their figure – the only bit that’s just about true (but still exaggerated) – is the cost of holding the referendum itself… OK – so, if “No” wins, that must mean the taxpayer doesn’t have to pay for the referendum. Are the sleazy No-monger millionaires offering to pay the cost if they win, then? Or is that just another lie?


The biggest and best of all articles about the two systems up for grabs in tomorrow’s referendum is by Tim Gowers. It’s detailed, fair – it gives the downsides to the system he favours, too – and it’s brilliantly argued.

You should put aside some time to read it for yourself, but here’s a scathing excerpt knocking down the lies about the cost:

“Here is how the NO2AV campaign breaks down the cost of AV.

“The referendum itself: £91 million.
“Electronic vote counting machines: £130 million.
“Explaining AV to voters: £26 million.

“This adds up to £250 million (or rather, they say it does — actually it adds up to £247 million). We can take that straight down to £156 million with the help of the following simple observation:

“THE REFERENDUM IS HAPPENING ANYWAY! DUH.

“Just to make that point clear, imagine that a group of friends want to go to the cinema. Some people want to see Avatar, which is the film showing in a single-screen cinema just round the corner. But others are not so sure, so they suggest catching a bus to a large multiplex cinema where there are three films that look promising, one of which is Avatar. This plan is agreed upon, and when they are at the multiplex a discussion ensues about which film to watch. The Avatar supporters argue that the cost of the bus fare is an argument against choosing another film, since it would have been possible to watch Avatar without a bus journey. The rest of the group laugh in their faces.

“£156 million is still a lot of money. Luckily we can take it down further: it is a straightforward lie that AV requires electronic vote-counting machines. That gets us down to £26 million.

“Does it take that much money to explain AV to voters? If so, could I please please be the one who is paid £26 million to say ‘Put the candidates in order of preference until you don’t care any more’?”

Not completely convinced yet to vote #Yes2AV? Try 1 of my other YES! reasons. Or 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 8…!

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, Corruption, Labour, Paddy Ashdown, Referendum

Down to my 6th reason to vote YES! to the Alternative Vote tomorrow, and all of my preferences are still looking pretty good! This one sounds nerdier, but it’s important: one of the key reasons AV means fairer votes is that it stops tactical voting. And that makes it much fairer to the voter – instead of having to decide whether to vote for the candidate you most agree with, or just try and guess who’s best-placed to stop the one you most disagree with, you vote honestly, positively, and if your favourite doesn’t make it, your next choice might.

It’s all part of how AV gives voters more power (my 3rd reason to vote YES!), and the flipside of how you get to put your most-hated candidate right at the bottom (my 5th). It’s common sense – wouldn’t you rather be able to vote for who you really want, without fear that it would ‘let them in’? Don’t be prisoners of fear.

The “No” campaign claim the current system is simple to understand… Well, only if you’re in a ‘safe’ seat and know the same party will get in no matter who you vote for! What actually happens now is that an awful lot of voters have to take a stab in the dark and hope their vote won’t be wasted. Listen to World War II Naval Veteran Ralph’s story on how he fought for democracy, but democracy’s never happened for him.

You know all those leaflets party send out saying ‘Don’t vote for them – they can’t win here’? You can put all those in the bin (even faster than you already do) if you vote YES! to AV. Roy Jenkins’ way of explaining AV’s big boost to voter choice was that: “…it would enable voters to express their second and sometimes third or fourth preferences, and thus free them from a bifurcating choice between realistic and ideological commitment or, as it sometimes is called, voting tactically.”

Or you might have it explained by cats.

Here’s how the current system works. Or doesn’t (from Anthony Smith).



If that doesn’t convince you, here’s a ballot paper worked out by hand, too. “First past the post”? It’s just too complicated for voters to understand!

No To All Those Lies (Part V) – Taking the Piss

All anyone’s had from the No Campaign is lies, lies, more lies, and an extra helping of lies. Obvious, because they can’t come up with a positive case for the current broken system – as you’ve seen above, it’s complicated and wasteful, and a fix to make voters vote against the person they really want. And as it’s the current, broken system that’s really the confusing, unfair system the No-sayers pretend AV is – what better way to answer them than by taking the piss?

So here’s Charlie Brooker on the No campaign’s whirlpool of stupidity (OK, so he doesn’t think much of the Yes campaign, either…).

And look what would happen if the FA cup was decided by “first past the post”? Or if the Premiership was decided by “first past the post”? Madness (I’m reliably informed by friends who give a fuck about football)!


Not completely convinced yet to vote #Yes2AV? Try 1 of my other YES! reasons. Or 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 or 8…!

Labels: British Politics, Referendum

I’ve offered four largely positive reasons to vote YES! to the Alternative Vote on Thursday… But sometimes I’m a grumpy sod, so now I’ve got down to number 5 I’ll admit there are also some very negative reasons to vote YES! Is there a party you hate the most? Or has one politician in your area really pissed you off? Then imagine the satisfaction in putting them all the way at the bottom of your ballot. If the “No” campaign is right that Lib Dems are unpopular, then AV is the system that lets you give us the biggest kicking.

Can I confess that in internal Lib Dem elections I often take some pleasure in putting the people I like most at the top of the ballot, then filling in people I particularly dislike (surely not!) at the bottom…? Which is much more fun. And only then thinking about the order of those I don’t mind in the middle. You don’t have to use more than your top preference, of course – in fact, you can abstain altogether – but knowing you’ve made it more difficult for the person you like least to get elected can be very satisfying.

The Alternative Vote magnifies people’s views, and lets voters gang up on unpopular parties. That means it’s far easier to kick out an unpopular government – if people think a party’s good, or at least ‘OK, I suppose,’ they get a bonus; if they’ve totally fucked up, AV hammers them, because they don’t get many preferences.

Remember the 2005 General Election? Remember the fury at Tony Blair and the Labour Party for their illegal invasion of Iraq and lies about weapons of mass destruction? The Labour Government got just 35.2% of the vote. Nearly two thirds of the country voted against them, giving Labour the smallest share of the vote that a “winning” government has ever had – but they still “won” 355 seat. A comfortable majority.

Vote “YES!” to make unpopular governments a whole lot less comfortable.

Fairer votes might have let all those of us who thought Labour’s warmongering authoritarian smugness needed taking down a peg gang up on them. Instead, as the ‘biggest loser’ under our current system, they were rewarded with absolute power even when two thirds of the country voted them down. They had absolutely no mandate, but still – again – absolute power.

And if you hate the Liberal Democrats as much as I hated Labour, AV lets you give us a thrashing, too. The “No” campaign tell a lot of lies, but one of the stupidest is that the Lib Dems are incredibly unpopular – and that AV would give us more power (it never has to a third party in Australia, where it’s actually used). It is simply not possible for both of these to be true. If the Lib Dems are now widely hated, AV would hammer us.

I believe in fairer votes for the sake of democracy, not just one party, so I’m willing to take that risk. That the “No” campaign tells such lies to scare you just shows their narrow partisan agenda has nothing to do with democracy.

No To All Those Lies (Part IV)

All the No Campaign can do is keep heaping on more lies because they can’t come up with a positive case for the current broken system. But as in this post I’ve almost matched “No” for being negative, why not read some of the reasons why their lies about AV don’t stand up by my friend Andrew Hickey, who’s a big, positive fan of the strengths of the Alternative Vote?


Update: with tonight’s two polls bizarrely showing either “No” just 1% ahead and all to play for – “YES!” voters take note: it’s close as can be, and your vote counts! – or with the biggest lead yet – “No” voters take note: you’re safe, you can sit at home and not bother ;-) – Andrew is very forceful: get out the YES! vote!


Not completely convinced yet to vote #Yes2AV? Try 1 of my other YES! reasons. Or 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 or 8…!

Labels: British Politics, Iraq, Liberal Democrats, Referendum

After my 1st, 2nd and 3rd reasons to vote YES! to the Alternative Vote on Thursday, here’s number 4. You know that, thanks to the current system, in over two thirds of all seats the current MP “won” last year despite over half of their voters voting against them. Well, it’s worse than that in a lot of seats: though most people rejected them, some of these ‘biggest losers’ remain so safe they get jobs for life. But AV means those two thirds of MPs have to work harder, and the ‘safe’ ones suddenly get shocked out of their smugness.

Because AV is an evolutionary change, not a revolutionary one, it’s not quite powerful to eliminate every ‘safe seat’. But it’s worth voting YES! to our one chance for change to shake up most of them! Some MPs will always work hard, and listen to you no matter who voted for them. And some will be forced to do so because the result in their seat was quite close. But there are a lot in the middle who can sit back and be sure that they’re never going to lose their seat, because even quite sizeable majorities against them are so disorganised between different parties. AV kicks away that unfair prop by letting your preferences get organised enough to kick them out. If you’re the MP in the two thirds of seats where most people voted for someone else and you want to keep your seat, “first past the post” means you can sit back, vote the party line and not listen to anyone but your Leader. If you want to keep your seat under AV, you have to work harder at listening to your voters.

Which would you rather? MPs only listening to each other, or being forced to listen to you? Vote YES! to fairer votes to make MPs work harder.

The safer the MP and the less they have to listen to you, the fact is that the more they ripped you off in that big expenses scandal a couple of years ago. The safer they are and the more they can get away with just trousering their ‘safe’ cash from the taxpayer without working for it, the more likely they are even to take extra jobs when they’re supposed to be working for you, to coin even more cash! It’s common sense – if they think they’ve got a job for life, they don’t care what you think about them. Well, AV makes a lot of those ‘safe’ MPs suddenly scared for their jobs.

Say YES! to fairer votes make your MP scared for their job and keep their fingers out of the till!

I’ve just turned on the telly and seen historian Dan Snow explain simply how AV makes the majority heard. It’s common sense – if you want to get elected, you should need to reach out to the majority in your seat, and AV’s fairer votes make you. Remember that simple illustration of how it works:




Vote YES! to stop MPs being complacent, to cut back their jobs for life, and force them to start listening to you!

No To Lies, More Lies and More Lies Still (Part III)

With the No Campaign telling nothing but lies, more lies and more lies still because they can’t come up with a case in favour of the current broken system, there are too many lies for me to deal with all in one post. But, unlike me, Paddy Ashdown is brilliant, so he can manage it – read how Paddy takes on the lies and negative campaigning and gives them a damned good thrashing.


Not completely convinced yet to vote #Yes2AV? Try 1 of my other YES! reasons. Or 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 or 8…!

Labels: British Politics, Corruption, Paddy Ashdown, Referendum

Time for my third-best reason to vote YES! to the Alternative Vote on Thursday: 1st to get MPs supported instead of opposed by the majority; 2nd to boost your power to throw out crooks; and 3rd, to give everyone more choice with a small but powerful change. So if you want a big change eventually, this is a significant step in that direction; if you’re not entirely sure about change, it’s evolutionary, not revolutionary. AV’s the system used by countless organisations across the UK, including Labour and the Conservative Party (David Cameron wouldn’t be Leader under “first past the post”).

Vote For Change – Powerful Enough To Be Worth Having, Cautious Enough Not To Be Scary

The Alternative Vote isn’t a perfect voting system. There isn’t one! But it’s an awful lot better than “first past the post”, and it’s the best for electing just one person at a time (which is why the Liberal Democrats use it for internal elections for just one person, like party Leader). I’ve always been quite open that the system that gets the balance best is the Single Transferable Vote. That’s the system the Lib Dems think is best (and use in for internal elections for more than one person). Unfortunately, the Lib Dems couldn’t get either the Tories or Labour to support giving the people a choice on STV, but at least we persuaded the Tories to offer you a choice on the Alternative Vote, which is a close relative of STV and gets halfway there. You see, STV has two big points in its favour: it gives voters far more power, by letting them choose candidates in order instead of just having to pick one and cross their fingers; and it’s fairer between parties, because it’s more proportional.

The Alternative Vote’s big value as a change is that it’s a preferential system – it does indeed give voters far more power by letting them choose candidates in order instead of just having to pick one and cross their fingers. It’s not as powerful as STV, because you can only rank candidates of different parties in order of preference, not choose your favourites inside parties as well. And it’s not any more proportional than “first past the post” (no system that only elects one person at a time can be) – but then, some proportional systems give all the power to party machines to choose who’s elected, when I (and the Lib Dems) reckon voters should get the power to put candidates in order. And that’s the advantage of AV – it gives half of the improvement over “first past the post” I’d like, and that’s worth having.

So I want a bigger change, but I’d be happy with a small one to get along with. What if you’re unhappy with the current system, but a bit worried that changing things might make it worse? Then AV is for you. It’s not much more complicated. It doesn’t cost any more money. It doesn’t need to change when or where votes take place, or who counts them. It keeps one MP per seat, and one ballot paper, and – whatever “No” may claim – one person, one vote. It’s just that your vote becomes more powerful, because it contains more choice. And it’s not some new, alien system – thousands of different British organisations use it to choose their officers and committees. Including, despite what some of them are saying in this referendum, the Lib Dems, Labour, and even the Tories.

The Lib Dems Want More Than AV; Labour Promised AV; the Tories Think AV’s So Good They Use It Themselves

One of the No campaign’s biggest lies is that “No-one wants AV”. The Labour Party like it so much that they put it in their General Election manifesto last year (though, colour me stunned, many individual MPs who were elected under the current system have ignored their manifesto to support the old system that gives them their salaries, perks and power). In fact, all three of the main parties (and most of the little ones) think AV’s such a fair system that they use versions of it in their own internal elections. It’s just that some politicians say ‘If it’s good enough for us, it’s good enough for you’, while others say ‘We use it, but you plebs are too stupid to (Help! Help! It would give you plebs too much power!)’.

Prime Minister David Cameron pretends he doesn’t understand it, and tells you it isn’t fair… But if the Tories used the “first past the post” he pretends is so good, he wouldn’t be Prime Minister. He wouldn’t be their Leader. David Cameron was elected because the candidate with the largest number of votes, David Davis, didn’t get majority support – so the voters for the also-ran candidates transferred their votes to Mr Cameron, who they were happier with, and together that put him in the lead. In Labour, too, Ed Miliband won an AV election where his brother would be Leader under “first past the post”. Unlike Mr Cameron’s hypocrisy, both Miliband brothers are honest enough to say they support AV because it’s right, whether it’s good or bad for them personally. In fact, the only party Leader who’d have won with both AV and “first past the post” is Nick Clegg.

AV is such a well-used, traditional British system that you can find people in favour of it from all political views (except the BNP, who are scared to death of it). You can watch TV historian Dan Snow explain our voting history and how AV would affect it. And what about historical figures? Winston Churchill wanted a more proportional system; the “No” lot like to tell you he didn’t think much of AV – but, as they don’t have any positive argument for “first past the post,” it’s no surprise that they never tell you Churchill hated that, too:

“The present system has clearly broken down. The results produced are not fair to any party, nor to any section of the community. In many cases they do not secure majority representation, nor do they secure an intelligent representation of minorities. All they secure is fluke representation, freak representation, capricious representation.”

I’ve explained why, though AV isn’t perfect, it’s a step forward from that – and it improves on Churchill’s complaint, because it does “secure majority representation” in each seat. Quite a few Conservatives are honest enough to back the system they use for their own elections, too, such as this post from the leading Tory on Swansea Council. Or, if you like, you can read the reasons for change from an excellent Liberal Democrat councillor I know. And I’ve already given the fact that AV has always been the most popular choice for Labour reformers, was backed by the whole Labour Party in their election manifesto just last year and, as I’ve already said, the Labour Leader is campaigning for it (just like his brother).

This is our one chance to vote for change – in the first UK-wide referendum since 1975. Don’t waste it because the change on offer ‘isn’t perfect’.

The important thing about AV is that it gives you more power over all the parties, because it gives you more choice about all their candidates. All the parties know that. That’s why some of them are in favour of it – and some are afraid of it. But remember, all the parties support AV. Some of them in secret, and some of them honestly for the rest of us, too! It’s simple. It’s an easy change to make. And it makes sense – you just put the candidates the parties offer you in order of who you think can best do the job. Who can disagree with that? And why do so many of the people who pretend to disagree with that use it themselves, when nobody’s looking?

No To Lies and More Lies (Part II) – What the People Who’ve Used AV For A Century Say To the Liars

You’ll probably have spotted by now that the No Campaign have been telling lies, more lies and a lot more lies on top of that, because they can’t come up with a case in favour of the current “first past the post” system (where usually the biggest loser “wins” when they’re nowhere near the “post”). Because there are too many lies to deal with all in one post, here’s a second batch…

Although the Alternative Vote is used by thousands of organisations in the UK already (including, of course, the Conservative Party), the biggest set of AV elections on Earth at the moment are to the Australian Parliament, where they’ve used it for a century and have had one person, one vote – by AV – for longer than we have in Britain. So Australian commentators are in quite a good position to point out some of the most ludicrous inventions from the No campaign: why everyone’s votes count the same under AV, when No pretends some people’s count extra; that no-one in Australia is calling for “first past the post,” despite the No campaign pretending people are; and a bumper post dealing with a load of the No campaign’s bizarre delusions at once!


Not completely convinced yet to vote #Yes2AV? Try 1 of my other YES! reasons. Or 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8…!

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, History, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Referendum

Want to know my second-best reason to say YES! to the Alternative Vote on Thursday? My first’s to stop two thirds of MPs being elected – as they were last year – even though they were losers for most of their voters, with most people voting against them. My second choice reason’s pretty strong, too. Remember all those MPs caught milking our money a couple of years ago? Voting YES! makes it much easier to gang up on a crook and throw them out! And by an amazing coincidence, those MPs most against change were on average the biggest crooks. Gee, wonder why they want to keep the current system?

AV isn’t a magic bullet – if people vote for crooks, they’ll still get in. And some voters love being ripped off, and re-elect fat cats. No electoral system can overcome voter stupidity – though the No campaign reckon every single one of us is too thick to count, and only capable of marking a crude X as we wipe drool from our sagging jaws.

Can you count “1, 2, 3…”? Then you’re capable of voting in an AV election.

And that’s the beauty of it. If you have a crooked MP who you’re longing to get rid of, with AV you don’t have to try and guess who’s best-placed to beat them, and risk splitting the vote so they still get in even though most people vote against them – like a whole two thirds of current MPs. With AV, you don’t have to choose whether to pick someone you don’t like all that much in order to beat someone you hate, and make it look like the candidate you like most isn’t very popular. Just put your choices in order, and the system does the adding up for you to have the best chance of beating the crook!

Voting YES! to AV gives you the power to choose who you want most, and still gang up against your local crook.

Here’s how AV works – Giving Your Vote More Power

In the most detail, top thoughtful blogger Andrew Rilstone explains.

If you prefer someone to explain in person, here’s a video of TV historian Dan Snow explaining the system.

And, most simply of all, a graphic (from here) that sums it up:

No To Lies (Part I) – Those Leaflets and That Video

Meanwhile, the No Campaign have been telling lies. And more lies. And a lot more lies on top of that. They don’t think anyone could possibly support the current “first past the post” system (where usually the biggest loser “wins” when they’re nowhere near the “post”) on its merits. Well, except for the two thirds of the MPs who owe all their salaries, all their perks and all their power to the current system letting them “win” when more than half their voters vote against them. But ‘Let me keep my salaries, all their perks and all their power even though most of you hate me’ isn’t a winning argument, is it? So all they’ve got left is telling lies to make you too afraid to vote YES!

In fact, there are too many lies to deal with all in one post. So here’s a start.

You know the “No” leaflet you’ve had through your door? Here’s a simple guide to why it’s all a lie.

And here’s a leaflet that “No” haven’t actually produced, but give them time (note: this isn’t a lie. It’s satire).

And did you watch the “No” video? No, better things to do with your time, probably. But it turns out that’s all big fat lies too!


Not completely convinced yet to vote #Yes2AV? Try 1 of my other YES! reasons. Or 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8…!

Labels: British Politics, Corruption, Referendum

Not made up your mind yet about Thursday’s referendum? I’m voting YES! to the Alternative Vote. It’s the best choice on the ballot paper for many reasons – but, as it’s all about letting voters have more power by picking candidates in order of preference, here’s my first choice in favour of AV. Not the only one, but, for me, the best.

Two thirds of all MPs today were “winners” last year with more people voting against them that voted for them.

Two thirds of all MPs today are opposed to reforming the system on Thursday.

What an amazing coincidence!

In the system we have now and in AV, if any candidate gets more than half of the vote, they’ve won. Simple as that. But the “No” campaign says that if you lose the vote of more than half the people, you should still “win”. “Yes” means something better: a system that means MPs need at least half of their voters in favour. So that’s the purpose of giving us all the chance to put potential MPs in order.


You know, when I make a speech, one of the oldest rhetorical flourish is the ‘rule of three’ – make three points, and you give the third more oomph. So it would have been satisfying to finish off my two “two thirds” with a third. I’d like to be able to give you the shocking figure that as many as two thirds of people have voted against an MP who still “won” – but that would have been an understatement. The current ‘biggest loser wins’ system means that some MPs have “won” with almost three quarters of their voters against them.

And this isn’t something that only ever benefits Labour and the Tories – though they do get the biggest bonus from the current system. In last year’s General Election, Liberal Democrat Simon Wright “won” Norwich South with just 29.4% of the vote, and 70.6% against. But he’s honest – even though that dodgy electoral system put him in Parliament, he’s committed to changing it, even at personal peril. And the first General Election I was involved in was 1992, when Liberal Democrat Russell Johnson “won” Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber with only 26% of the vote, and a gigantic 74% against! But he, too, was committed to changing the electoral system even when it did him good.

So that’s why I call the current system ‘biggest loser wins’ instead of the “No” campaign’s propaganda that it’s “First Past the Post”. Where is that post, exactly? The only one that matters is just past half the votes – any less, and you can still lose. Or still win. Entirely at random. And two thirds of those MPs who “won” last year by “First Past the Post” did so well short of the post. It’s hardly a winning post when you flop down barely halfway along the course and they have to carry the “winning post” back to you, is it?

Put simply:


Vote “YES!” on Thursday and you get a winning post that everyone can see – cross 50% of the votes, and you win. Pull up short, and you don’t deserve to!


M’aidez! M’aidez! Someone sent me the above graphic illustration of why even the term “first past the post” is a big fat lie, but I don’t know who created it. If anyone has a link, please let me know so I can give appropriate credit.


Whichever way you decide, this is the first UK-wide referendum since most of us were old enough to be able to vote. So don’t waste your vote – use it on Thursday.





Not completely convinced yet to vote #Yes2AV? Try one of my other YES! reasons. Or 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8…!

Labels: British Politics, Referendum, The Golden Dozen

One character from Doctor Who occupies a unique position in the series, and a unique place in fans’ hearts. Played by the lovely Nicholas Courtney, who died in February, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce served alongside no fewer than five Doctors in two dozen TV stories on screen, and many more elsewhere. For an idea of why he was so loved, why not try an entirely made up DVD box set – six DVDs, several Doctors, and the one Brigadier (or, as it turns out, more). I’ve picked out a selection that offer his very best moments. Rather than review each story in full, then, I’ve highlighted that particular golden moment – while doing my best to fillet it of spoilers, in case you’ve never seen the story before. But watch out: the last couple inevitably become more and more spoilertastic…

The Invasion

“That was just a dozen of them. I’d hate to have to meet a hundred. Forward!”

Newly promoted to Brigadier (“I’ve gone up in the world,” he proudly and wittily explains in his flying HQ in Episode Two, as we’re reintroduced to him by the sight of his arse in tight pants. Nick didn’t think that uniform flattered his bottom, but it looks fine to me) and now in charge, immortally, of the British section of UNIT, what better way is there to remember Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart than leading from the front? The centrepiece of the final episode sees a breathlessly exciting action sequence in which Patrick Troughton’s Doctor is paired with an unlikely ally in a vital mission against the Cybermen, with the Brigadier and his troops following close behind. Grim, claustrophobic location filming and jangling music frame flaming Cyberweapons in pitched battle against grenades, bazookas and the Brig barking orders. In their first story, UNIT are as professional and dangerous as they’ll ever be.

In the novelisation, delightfully, the TV version’s anonymous Russian base that provides missile support against the Cybermen is named as the “Nykortny Space Centre”. Quite right, too.

Spearhead From Space

“I know nothing about a man from space.”

The Brigadier is best known as a regular figure in the series throughout two-thirds of Jon Pertwee’s stories, and he’s essentially the lead for that Doctor’s first adventure. Watch him – X-File on the shelf behind him – introducing Dr Liz Shaw and the viewers to UNIT (“Security. Rather amusing, don’t you think? Oh, you don’t”), pedeconferencing with his Captain three decades before The West Wing, treating the Doctor as a cross between imposter and errant child, and issuing orders to shoot to kill on British soil. What’s not to love? Assured, compelling, trustworthy, he’s clearly in charge of the series; Doctor Who looks suddenly expensive, efficient and military. Fortunately, that won’t last! I reviewed the bare-bones original DVD quite some time ago, and Spearhead From Space is to be reissued in Special Edition form with its first sequel one month from today. When you pick it up, whip to half-way through Episode 1 for a quite remarkable moment when the Brigadier arrives on the scene only to find the press have been tipped off about the strange goings-on. Directed like real news footage, with cameras, mikes and journalists jostling into shot, the Brigadier’s never been more utterly believable than brusquely dismissing the press; the book lets him come up with a cover story, but on screen he delightfully switches from calm control to looking like he wants them all shot. Immediately afterwards, he orders his troops to use live ammunition (no connection!).

Mind you, the much-copied very best scene of all from the story comes along in Episode 4, with the Brigadier only coming in at the end to react (“Try the army! Well, keep trying!”) and report on the aftermath: it involves the most aggressive January sales you’ve ever seen…


This one’s a bit more spoilery, but it’s difficult to miss what the twist is when he’s on the cover of the DVD:

Inferno

“But I don’t exist in your world!”
“Then you won’t feel the bullets when we shoot you.”

Jon Pertwee’s first season as the Doctor is without a doubt the high point for the Brigadier; he’s not just in every story but at the centre of it, and sometimes a good deal more dangerous than even the Doctor is prepared for – particularly when their relationship comes close to tearing apart in the superb Doctor Who and the Silurians. If The Ambassadors of Death was out on DVD yet, it’d be very tempting just to pick those four tales as a Brigadier box set; not least because over the course of the season he moves from lead, to threat, to action hero and Mulder, to the villain in the series finale, Inferno, just as we’ve grown fond of him. In Episode 3, the Doctor is hurled into an alternative universe where his friends are fascists. And not friendly. The biggest shock is not when the Doctor’s chased by the troops that usually follow his suggestions, but when the bullying Brigade-Leader Lethbridge-Stewart is revealed (leading to perhaps the best-known actors’ anecdote in the history of Doctor Who. Fortunately, it’s told twice on the DVD to save it for posterity). Nick Courtney makes him such a different character to our very own Brig that the gripping story of the parallel world becomes far more unsettling; it’s an absolutely terrific double performance, contrasting the Brigade-Leader’s laid-back arrogance with the Brigadier’s fairness and the Brigadier’s unflappability with his terror at the end of his world.

The Green Death

“No, no, no!”
“But, Doctor, it’s exactly your cup of tea. This fellow’s bright green, apparently, and dead.”

By four years into Pertwee’s time as the Doctor, the Brigadier was a more comfortable figure; perhaps almost cosy. Perhaps the best place to see how he still stole the show is this passionately green liberal tale, where Mr Courtney seemingly effortlessly keeps in character even as his character veers from authoritarian to old softie, from canny investigator to comic relief. And back. Episode One shows off all those sides perfectly, in a more understated way to companion Jo Grant’s storyline. Trying to get a jaded Doctor involved in an investigation, then clashing with idealistic Jo over the desirability of more oil exploitation, he’s clearly become the establishment figure. While he shows that his natural views are rather conservative when talking to his friends, though, the remarkable thing about him is that later in the same episode he clashes with the big business boss that both his inclinations and his orders tell him to go along with – his integrity and intelligence means he still asks those awkward questions. Never mind fiction; if more people did that in life, the world would be a better place. Oddly, it’s every time Lethbridge-Stewart appears here out of uniform (steady; I mean in civvies) that he seems to get more shrewd and sensible.


This next one’s going to have something more of a spoiler in it than the ones above, and the one after gives the story away massively. Just so you know.

Mawdryn Undead

“Well, bless my soul. So you’ve done it again, Doctor!”

A decade after the Brigadier’s glory days, in this melancholy story Peter Davison’s Doctor returns to find him retired to a minor teaching post – and without even his memories of saving the world to show for it (he’s still stuck with a moody alien exile, but can’t even spot him). The Doctor’s prompts push a haunted Lethbridge-Stewart into a reverie of Yeti, Cybermen, Axons, Daleks, the Robot, Zygons and Doctors (or, if you’re watching the DVD Special Edition, Yeti, Cybermen, Silurians, the Master, Axons, Bok, Omega, the Robot, Zygons, curiously little Patrick Troughton and curiously much Tom Baker), all to glorious music. But everything’s not all right in a flash, or flashback: the Doctor unwisely prods at the reason for his memory loss, and you feel hurt for both of them when his old friend lashes out (watch the teacup). Cleverly, the scenes of the Brigadier not being himself are intercut with scenes of a Doctor that isn’t – then, suddenly, Nick Courtney pulls off a much more subtle but in some ways even more startling double role to his performance in Inferno, playing a younger, starchier and slimmer (how did he do that?) self. He’s terribly engaging, and more fragile than we’ve ever seen him, even getting a nonchalant comeback to the Doctor’s typical “You never did understand the interrelation of time” and a recognition of just how essential he is from one of the Doctor’s contemporary companions: “Who is that person?” asks Nyssa; “Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, of course,” replies Tegan impatiently, as if to say, ‘Don’t you watch Doctor Who?’


The Brigadier looks marvellous striding up to his helicopter (or crawling away from it) in my next choice, and who could be better recognising the Doctor, unintroduced? But there’s really just one fantastic moment to choose from the last story, and it’s part of the climax – so if you haven’t seen it, look away now:

Battlefield

“Pitiful! Can this world do no better than you as a champion?”
“Probably. I just do the best I can.”

Although the Brigadier’s appeared in many novels, comic strips and audio adventures since the original run of TV Doctor Who finished, and rejoined the world of TV’s Doctor Who for one last hurrah in The Sarah Jane Adventures: Enemy of the Bane, it’s difficult to think of a better send-off than his starring role opposite Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor in Battlefield, which opened the final season of the Twentieth Century. The story itself has its faults, but the Brigadier himself, lovingly written, shines. Called unwillingly back to be a man of action – “steeped in blood” – he takes the Doctor’s role of saving the world, believing it’s his duty, knowing that it’ll probably kill him… But determined to live to fight another day, if he can. Here, the Brigadier is hurled through a wall, then caught in an explosion, then underestimated by a Doctor and audience that mourn him in advance. And he’s never had a more heart-punchingly heroic scene than standing alone – standing firm – against a demon that wants to destroy the world.


I could have picked so many stories; the Brigadier was a lead character in the first Doctor Who story I ever saw, Tom Baker’s debut Robot, and in so many of the early novels that kept me enthralled. Sadly, the BBC have destroyed most of Nicholas Courtney’s first Doctor Who story, The Daleks’ Master Plan – in which he plays not the Brigadier, but Space Security Agent Bret Vyon – though you can still find him in action in some of it in the Lost In Time DVD set, and the whole epic soundtrack on CD. The same is true of then-Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart’s introductory story, The Web of Fear. I’ve pictured that above, a story that you can never see as audiences at the time saw it – both literally (thanks again, BBC) and for the character’s initial part as a whodunit suspect, before we know what a splendid chap he’ll turn out to be. I’ve added Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion (aka Spearhead From Space, again) to the pile as one of the best novelisations featuring the Brigadier, this time on the cover, and now read in full on CD by Caroline John, one of eight actors who’ve given us their own Brigadier in audiobook form. The Spectre of Lanyon Moor sees Nicholas Courtney himself return to the role on CD, in a full-cast adventure from Big Finish; and, last but not least, of all the many original novels of the Brigadier, none is finer and none makes him more central than Paul Cornell’s gorgeous The Shadows of Avalon. It revisits many of the themes of Battlefield, fashions the Brigadier into a character of myth, and is the only Doctor Who that makes me cry every time. Nick Courtney’s passing will make that even more guaranteed.

Strange to think I could love a soldier character so much, but I always did, and he helped make me a Liberal into the bargain. The Brigadier always seemed so true, and far more permanent than any Doctor; I hope trying out my ‘DVD box set’ will explain why more eloquently than I ever could. And if you watch the many extra features, I hope, too, that you’ll get a sense of why Nicholas Courtney himself will be so missed. I can’t get to many Doctor Who events any more, but if I do ever manage the odd one or two they’ll seem much emptier without Nick Courtney at them. I met him quite a few times, and he was always kind, funny, and uniquely beloved. A gent.

Labels: Big Finish, Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee, Made-up DVD Sets, Obituary, Patrick Troughton, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, The Brigadier

Spring is in the air, so I know you’re thinking of only one thing. No, not elections – Doctor Who! It’s marvellous to have again a reliable time of year when the series returns, even if Easter means “reliable” is also “moveable”. Dalek Easter Eggs in the shops and traditionally messed-up trailers on BBC1 signify just three weeks to go until the new season, with today the fourth anniversary of one of the best season openers, Smith and Jones. So watch that to stave off the pangs, and consider just what it has in common with a memorable 1980 tale…

Rumours that the blanked-out bit of last night’s Doctor Who trailer featured explosions in five colours and Dalek Sec gliding into view holding a ‘Did you miss me?’ sign are apparently unfounded.

Having meanly pulled Mr Moffat’s leg over his Christmas special and fabulous old Doctor Who Weekly comic strips, it’s about time I redressed the balance by taking a look at one of Russell T Davies’ homages to the past. The image I displayed at Christmas was from The Iron Legion, still arguably the best strip they ever did, and terrific Doctor Who. If you didn’t read it at the time (I was a marvelling eight-year-old), grab hold of Panini Books’ smartly reprinted graphic novel Doctor Who – The Iron Legion, which collects that superb story together with several other Tom Baker Show strips – or, if you feel like splashing out, there’s a colourised Doctor Who Classics Omnibus with even more inside it, though for me larger pages in the original black and white win out. Either way, consider Smith and Jones when, as I did at Christmas when unable to put the book down after opening it, you flip a few pages forward to encounter Doctor Who and the Star Beast (the penultimate episode of which was in the shops 31 years ago this week), another story written by 2000AD creator Pat Mills and stunningly illustrated by Dave Gibbons, this time set on our Earth, in the present day, with ordinary people and their families caught up with an alien on the run…

Watch out for spoilers!



The Doctor meets his ‘first’ black companion while she’s looking after an apparently unwell, harmless, eccentric character who’s a bit anaemic at first sight – an apparently harmless character being chased by big, ugly, ruthless monsters who shoot first and ask questions later. Once the Doctor’s been examined by a rather scary surgeon, he teams up with his intelligent young black companion-to-be (who, though English, has a Welsh surname) and together they discover that the ‘harmless’ character is really a sadistic, murdering space criminal and the trigger-happy brutes are in reality galactic police who have their own translator machines to talk to the humans. The story also sees a chunk of a British city being lifted up into space, taking its foundations with it, and as the tension ramps up towards the end of the tale the Doctor has to deal with the threat of deadly radiation – though he still finds time to show off a trick he used to do as a young Time Lord…



One of the reasons the early Doctor Who Weekly strips by Pat Mills and John Wagner were so superb was that they were written as potential Doctor Who television adventures. Technically, they never made it to the screen – but compare Smith and Jones to The Star Beast, and you might very well wonder if Russell thought he could do something about that.

Now, of course, there are a lot more differences between the stories than I’ve intimated. If anything, Smith and Jones is most influenced by wanting to be a lively introduction in the manner of Rose, for me the only one of the five ‘new’ series opening episodes that’s even better than Martha’s first (and can you believe that that was first broadcast six years ago last weekend?). Still, I’d be amazed if Russell had never read The Star Beast – though Martha Jones is older and more capable than Sharon Davies, Beep the Meep is fluffier even than Florence Finnegan’s slippers, and the Judoon look more like Sontarans (arguably more than Russell’s Sontarans do) than Constable Zreeg and the Wrarth Warriors.

For me, both are terrific stories, and enormous fun, boasting some great images and ideas (rain rolling upwards and tying a knot in time; a starship crashing in a Northern town and aliens running for the bus). I’ve read the comic strip again recently and loved it, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing Smith and Jones again – the story after next in Richard and my David Tennant retrospective. Neither of them’s entirely perfect: though almost everything from the start to the climax and then the coda of Smith and Jones is rather marvellous, the climax itself consists of the Doctor striking a heroically suffering pose with the woman in his arms while, er, hoping the sort-of-villains will fix the plumbing; and while if you’ve read this far you’ll know the Meep’s secret, it’s always jarring in the comic strip that after having the Wrarth Warriors behave so ostentatiously villainously to give you the wrong end of the stick, an eeeeevil internal monologue gives away Beep’s true nature considerably before the moment of maximum dramatic tension. And if you think Martha – written out perfectly, I have to say, at the end of the terrific 2007 season – eventually being seen married to Mickey Smith is a bit forced, poor old Sharon’s time in the TARDIS comes to an abrupt end when (after being handily aged a few years to legalhood and, shh, ignore the emotional maturation) she finally lands on a planet with one other black character. Were this an American series, he would crassly be fated to become her love interest, but thankfully, as this is Doctor Who… What’s that you say? She never! And he’s just complained about losing his pet and needing something to keep him warm in its place? You can’t be serious. Anyway, Sharon starts well.

So, settle down with some tea (just eight sugars) and cake, or milkshake through a straw that I hope you’ve sterilised, flip open your shiny Doctor Who – The Iron Legion graphic novel and pop in your shiny Doctor Who 2007 DVD. And enjoy two stories that, as my lovely Richard said of Smith and Jones but applies just as strongly to The Star Beast, have a

“fantastic mix of the brilliantly bizarre and the horribly frightening, with down-to-Earth relationships and finest British whimsy.”

Labels: Comics, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Magazine, Obscure Doctor Who Jokes, Tom Baker