Apparently I am not a democrat.

Righty-ho, this should be interesting. For those of you who haven't encountered him, Neil Harding is a devout New Labourite who has an unerring ability to speak crap on a wide variety of topics. I see him as a hopelessly naive, slightly hysterical pseudo-socialist. No doubt he would see me as a bitter, twisted far right ranter. Which I am.

Here he takes on PR, and in doing so implies I am not a democrat.

"This is the viciuos downward spiral in voter turnout happening across the world."

Voter turnout at the last election in the UK actually went up. Still not a great figure, but it did go up. And whilst the percentage turnouts in the USA was not great in the 2004 US election, turnouts did go up and Bush got the most voters ever for a US presidential candidate, with Kerry getting the second largest number of votes ever. Kind of indicates the downward trend may have been halted and may be moving in a more positive direction. To me, anyway. And, I'm fairly sure that is not how to vicious.

"If we are to tackle social exclusion, we need to tackle low voter turnout."

Probably also need to address other issues, like the poor education system, the tagging of people as problems with ASBOs etc etc etc.

"If I was PM I would embed these changes in a constitution then retire safe in the knowledge that the majority would have to agree any future government."

Constitutions can be changed. Two amendments to the US Constitution are about banning, then allowing, the consumption of alcohol. One amendment allows the people of the US to bear arms, and we all know the problems that causes. Bush will push for constitutional amendments banning gay marriage and abortion (although I doubt he will succeed). My point is this - constitutions can be amended, even if you require a majority of the population voting for the amendment. Ultimately constitutions are deeply flawed safeguards - at their basic level they are ideas written on a piece of paper, and fundamentally can be changed by someone with a new idea and a bottle of tippex.

"until voters scrutinise policy and see what a bunch of weirdos the BNP are, this scrutiny will happen under PR far more than it does under FPTP because minority viewpoints cannot be ignored"

Or, on the flipside, PR could improve the fortunes of the BNP through raising their profile. That is what effectively happened in the Weimar Republic during the 1920's to the National Socialist Party.

"Under FPTP it makes sense for the rightwing press to promote the far right because the poorer voters who vote BNP might otherwise have voted Labour. Under PR this would not be beneficial to the Conservatives, unlike under FPTP where any splintering of the poorer vote benefits the Tories."

So what you are proposing is not for the benefit of the poor or the country, but rather for your party? How very ignoble.

"They cite the favoured stat that the Tories got 60,000 more votes than Labour but 93 less seats in England. What they conveniently fail to say, is that the Tories in England, only got 35.7% of the vote and yet received 36.7% of the seats, so they are actually OVER-REPRESENTED in England."

Yes, but the fundamental point remains that, as the losing party in England, Labour are dramatically over-represented.

"To say any one party can speak for the whole of England is absurd. Regional assemblies make much more sense, as obviously does a proportional system."

Regional assemblies make bugger all sense, and tend to be costly wastes of time. And we need to decide whether we are going towards increased local democracy in the UK or increased centralisation in/with the European Union. Because at the moment we are pissing money away on the regional assemblies and on the EU.

"In my opinion anybody who supports FPTP cannot be truly called a democrat."

I appreciate it is your opinion, and I am more than happy to hear your opinion, but frankly your opinion is utter shite. I support FPTP, and I am a democrat. I believe passionately in democracy, but also believe that democracy needs to be workable. FPTP gives us governments who can actually go out and achieve things after winning an election, as opposed to unstable coalitions that achieve bugger all owing to the fact everyone is trying to appease the fringe parties. FPTP may give too much power to the main parties, but PR gives far too much power to the fringe parties. Ultimately in FPTP someone wins and someone loses. That's life - many advocates of PR just cannot cope with this simple fact of life. FPTP isn't ideal, but it has given this country (with the exception of the second Wilson/Callaghan government) stable governments with marjorities that have allowed them to implement the programmes and platforms that they were elected on.

It is fucking piss bastard typical for a left-winger/New Labourite to knee-jerk and claim that someone who does not agree with them is not a democrat. No, you dickhead, it just means I don't agree with you! Which is the whole point of democracy!