This morning we set up our 'No to AV' stall in George Lane, South Woodford. I was joined by councillors Chris Cummins and Paul Canal. We also had the local MP Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work & Pensions and high profile hospital cuts protester, join us for an hour.
Interesting people in AV is challenging - they would much rather have a referendum on our membership of the EU, that would really get people involved. In this case, most are planning not to vote on May 5th and the turnout is likely to be low. A great pity as we could find ourselves facing a major constitutional change without great public enthusiasm.
Most of the people we met are going to vote 'no', but of course there were some 'Yes' enthusiasts as well. One man told me that he wanted to be able to vote Lib Dem but to have a Conservative second choice to keep Ken Livingstone out! Superficially attractive, but is it really such a good idea to enshrine negative voting in the system like that? Won't it encourage negative campaigning? Or the buying of minority votes?
When I got home I found my postal voting form lying on the mat. I could cast this vote without any meaningful precaution to ensure that I am the person entitled to it, and in urban areas there are often allegations of postal vote fraud - surely there are some aspects of our voting system that need reform more urgently than AV.
16 comments:
I recognise Chris Cummins [he does not have a "g"] on the left but that doesn't look like Paul Canal on the right to me....
That's the problem of relying on spell checker - many thanks for pointing out the error. And no, my female colleague isn't Paul Canal...
Not Mrs Angry is she???
Of course not, RR: Mrs Angry does not wear trouser suits, is much taller, and rather like Boris, has never visited the eastern borders of our great metropolis.
Roger,
I take it the title of your blog is actually wishful thinking as South Woodford hasn't actually voted yet?
Too right about the postal vote scandal, Roger.
You may not have done so, Mrs Angry, but Boris has done so on a number of occasions.
Rog, the title is a prediction based on what people were telling us - those who ventured an opinion.
Actually 'South Woodford Votes Dunno' may have been more accurate - there is likely to be a very low turnout.
RR: yes, I know that Boris wears trouser suits, obviously.
Roger,
The indifference you have encountered is probably due to cognitive dissonance as a result of having to choose between voting "No" to piss off Clegg or "Yes" to piss off Cameron.
Roger,
In my experience if you stand with a placard saying "No to AV", you'll probably talk to lots of people who agree with you.
You might find the same if it said "Yes to AV"
I suspect that you'd get even more if it said "What the F*** is AV"
A minor point Roger - is it possible to turn on DATES on your "Comments", please?
We always know the TIME, but we don't see the subtlety of the remarks, without the dates...
By the way, we in Barnet had no idea that Mrs Angry hung out with you on this blog. We'll be coming and looking more often now.
Hi Anon, and welcome - come back as often as you want!
I'm not sure I'm sufficiently technically skilled to add dates as you request. Perhaps if you could let me have some very simple instructions?
I hope you appreciate the beneficial effect on your visitor numbers that I am bestowing on your blog, Mr Evans? Another way to boost numbers, I discovered this week, is to write about ladies' tights: you might want to give that a go, Rog: or maybe ladies shoes, in your case?
Happy Easter.
I enjoyed your post about tights, Mrs A, in fact I had to read it several times, just to get a clear understanding...
I do think you should have included the pictures which you described so temptingly.
Happy Easter.
Roger, if you think blogging about tights gets you a lot of hits, you should see how many I got for the blog about naked lesbians in the bath in the Daily Mail. Sadly I suspect that there were one or two disappointed customers of the blog, when they read what I had to say (Ho Hum, nothing new there).
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