Stuff I Couldn't Give a Fuck About Part One: The AV Referendum

Can we have the referendum on AV right now please? Because I'm mightily sick of the whole thing.

I get the impression that we are supposed to be surprised by elements of how the whole campaign has gone - like it is supposed to be some sort of revelation that David Cameron and the ever thuggish John Reid should share the same platform. Of course they can share the same platform; they've both spent enough of their careers chasing Daily Mail headlines. Likewise, seeing Ed Miliband and Vince Cable on the same stage is meant to be news, but I can't really see why. They are very much the same, both in terms of the way they think and the (generally idiotic) way they act. Cable and Miliband Minor together isn't so much a campaign as the queue for the audition for a political version of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.

And then there's been the proper campaign (by which I mean the one not conducted by jobbing politicians looking for a photo opportunity). What is striking about it is that neither side has ever made the case for their particular voting system. No To AV have stuck resolutely with the twin pronged attack of "ooo, AV'll cost ya" (ironically spending vast sums of money to convey that message) and "AV works for the BNP"* while Yes To AV have fought (judging by the completely unsolicited and unwelcome e-mails they insist on sending me) a purely reactive campaign, indignantly rebutting charges from the other side with the playground logic of "I know you are, you said you are, but what am I?" at the same time as thinking the use of the word "Fair" will automatically win people over to their side. As I say, neither campaign has truly set out to make an effective case for or against AV - in part, I suspect, because they know that their system is just as flawed (albeit in different ways) as the other side's.

And, of course, this referendum is basically on nothing - it is on a minor change to our unwritten constitution that will have precious little impact on the problems of politics in this country regardless of the outcome. The problem isn't the voting system - it is the political class, and those vainglorious turds who enter it. Show me a way of changing the type of person and raising the calibre of the individuals who enter our political elite, and I'll be listening. Hell, if it works, I'll campaign for it. But given the amount of power that has been ceded to the EU without a referendum and the wars we have entered/the near bankrupting of our country that took place without consulting the British people, you'll have to forgive me if I consider the AV referendum little more than a sideshow in British politics. The fact is, the real stuff is happening elsewhere while some people bicker about the system we use to vote.

*The irony is that the voting system impacts on the BNP remarkably little. Their grubby little star is in ascendance when mainstream politicians fail to make the strong and inclusive case for immigration, while it is in freefall when the BNP actually get some of the limelight and people see what nasty, ignorant and pointless thugs they are.