Daveybloke Does Democracy

Daveybloke, the Cuddly Conservative, has had a bit of a blather about the alternative vote system, and in doing so has demonstrated once again the impressive extent of his party's respect for the electorate. Daveybloke claimed that under the alternative vote system "your vote for a mainstream party counts once, while someone can support a fringe party like the BNP and get their vote counted several times"; which doubtless explains why the BNP is opposed to the alternative vote. Daveybloke noted that the AV system is "so obscure that it is only used by three countries in the whole world: Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea", a comment which itself demonstrates a level of respect for the colonials and their dusky neighbours that would not be out of place in a fringe party like the BNP. Our own system, Daveybloke burbled, "is used by half of the world"; although Daveybloke tactfully refrained from saying whether or not that half has been offered the choice of a different system. Best of all, Daveybloke reminded the electorate that Wee Nicky himself once denounced the AV system as a "miserable little compromise", as though Daveybloke and his Cuddly Conservatives would have been more than happy to allow a proper choice in the referendum if only the Liberal Democrats had remembered to mention it.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat doormat for the fossil fuels and nuclear lobby has accused the Conservatives' token Muslim, Baroness Warsi, of "Goebbels-like lies" because of her claim that the alternative vote system will force mainstream parties - such as, presumably, the party of Michael Gove, Liam Fox and Norman Tebbit - to pander to right-wing extremists. This is profoundly unjust. Goebbels' lies were large and scurrilous, but they frequently attained both plausibility and a certain malicious muck-raker's wit. Any fair-minded person must surely admit that the intelligence and credibility to aspire to Goebbels-like lies are not among Baroness Warsi's more obvious character flaws.