Ginger_Warrior

Furthermore an AV referendum was agreed by the Commons prior to the calling of the 2010 election but was lost in the wash-up period as the Labour Party rushed to complete its business in government. The only reason it was lost was thanks to staunch opposition to the proposal by the Conservative party, else it would have gone through in time and there'd be no issue with the Lib Dems having to renegotiate it as part of the coalition deal. Had a Labour-Liberal alliance been formed, we'd be talking about PR, not AV since that was the offer made from Brown to Clegg.

Oh great, back to the majority argument again. OK... here's a circle. I'll just leave it here since it saves people reading six pages. In fact just to be colourful, I'll post three circles: [hide=][/hide]

Well if tactical voting is inevitable--by your own admission, and not the first time you've admitted to what we're saying--then why not keep said tactics to the much simplier FPTP system? Why are you even bothering to use 'Under FPTP, tactical voting occurs' as an argument if it would happen under AV anyway?

[hide=The Tories wanting a strong first preference Labour vote?] [/hide]Seems like tactical voting to me. It's just more fancy and infinitely more complicated for a lay person in the electorate to see through.

So a majority of tacit support based on 'Let's keep the Tories out' campaigns is better than a third of the electorate giving absolute support to one candidate? This doesn't strike me as particularly progressive. But then not standing for one thing or another is what the Lib Dems are best at I guess...

So now we're basing our politics on what we're opposed to, rather than what we actually support?

They already do get a say. There is nothing stopping my local Liberal club from arranging an appointment with my Labour MP and indeed on many issues, if they're both as congruous as you might imply, they would agree anyway. People 'get their say' at reelection time. If the MP hasn't been doing a good enough job at representing people in his/her constituency, they will be voted out. There are no BNP Members of Parliament. I think what you meant to refer to were the two MEPs voted in the north of England who were voted in via PR. This shows why shouldn't be supporting AV, not vice versa.

Perhaps what we don't understand is that if after the first round of voting, one candidate has more votes than any other, why that candidate can't just be declared the winner.

Except they didn't choose it. They chose someone else, they lost, and so they chose someone else after that. Yes, I'm aware they can't vote retrospectively. The point is the winning candidate under AV wins using votes that considered that candidate to be second or third best, and I just don't see how that improves representation at a constituency level.

So votes made for a second choice or even third choice candidate effectively make-or-break the whole election, as opposed to our current system where only first choice votes count. This is one of the problems I have with this system. Yes, theoretically you achieve a majority and, yes, theoretically this makes more democratic sense. But the underlying fact of the matter is that a majority still did not vote the winning candidate as their first choice. Unless of course the winning candidate had a majority in the first round in which case they'd still have been elected under FPTP anyway.

OK, I'll put this as neutral as is acceptable for you guys. * A vote for a third placed or worse party is counted once in the first round, and then counted again in the second round and subsequent rounds via the second preference mechanism; * A vote for a first or second placed party is counted once in the first round, and then not counted again in any subsequent rounds. Agreed? I mean that is what happens in AV. Losing votes are counted towards second preferences.

:huh: I never said anything about republicanism. Not watching the royal wedding is hardly equivalent to being a republican.

Only a third said they would, which is a minority. We'll have to wait for the TV ratings to come out, I imagine they'd be higher than a third but perhaps not a majority.

I think hating melee training and the lack of any general opportunity for using mage on slayer tasks probably killed my interest in this game more than anything else.

PR presents a better solution than AV, only the Lib Dems turned down a PR referendum for a coalition deal with Labour in favour of an AV referendum with the Tories. I personally have no problem with smaller parties receiving more representation, but this isn't a proper solution because it puts the Holy Grail of PR even further away from reality, conversely making it even harder for smaller parties to change the system, and I'm not actually convinced the majority of people are unhappy with the current system as it is because the majority of people aren't too fussed about what the Green Party gets up to anyway. (Though ironically they managed to get an MP into Parliament using the current system which according to some makes it impossible for them to get representation but... there you go)

Don't speak on mine and other Labour party members' behalves, please. I'm just as much opposed to the Liberal part of our coalition government as the Tory part.

But the whole point of a referendum is that the majority accept a proposal. If the majority don't care enough to vote, how can the majority accept it? We can choose to conveniently ignore the fact that most people don't want AV enough to vote for it if you'd like, but it isn't adding anything to the debate really. End of the day, if only 15% of the electorate votes, and two thirds of them vote 'Yes', then only 10% of the entire electorate has (or more to the point, 90% hasn't) but it would go through anyway. That's wrong in my eyes.

In an election, non-voters shouldn't be considered, but in a referendum it's ignorant not to. A referendum is when the entire electorate is asked to accept or reject a certain proposal, if the the vast majority of the electorate has no opinion, you cannot claim that the majority have accepted it. That's fact, not opinion. Abstaining =/= Supporting.

I just find it disingenuous to claim that under PR/AV, the majority always wins, when the majority of people in the UK will most likely not actually vote for AV to be introduced or not introduced come 5th May. I know I'm not the only one to think that. There is also the side issue that this referendum would not even be taking place had the third placed Lib Dems not used that as leverage for a coalition deal with the Conservatives, and we all know how the Lib Dems have kept to their pre-election promises on spending cuts and tuition fees don't we? I don't feel that lying point-blank to students in a desperate bid to gain votes and then using that false support to gain favours from your coalition partners is a particularly honourable way to behave in a democratic system, particularly when they more than anyone are lecturing people on the inadequacies of our current system. They frankly don't deserve it.

I'll be voting 'No' because I don't actually see why the current system needs changing. The biggest issue with this vote is the participation rate. If the poll returns with around a 15% rate or something, how can anyone say, "The majority voted for a change/no change" when the real conclusion is that 85% didn't care enough to oppose the status quo in the first place?

Yesterday was a farce, I wouldn't even call it sport. There were some truly shocking moments last night that wouldn't be tolerated in any other sport, or even other countries within the footballing world. When you think of Serena Williams at the US Open, Ponting during the Ashes... it's not even in the same world. Same goes with the United incident at Wembley, refereeing a football match now has become completely unmanageable and about's time UEFA and FIFA stopped profiting from the controversy and did something about it.

Actually, I think I used to have the solution you're on and it did cause me trouble. My optician actually put me on a new type of lens (still soft glass) when the company got bought over and the new people refused to continue the lenses I was on. My eyes are fine now, my solution was also changed from that to a different brand so it might have been the solution.

If you're putting the liquid directly into your eyes then... what the [bleep]? If not, then ask the optician that prescribed them.

Yeah. I mean the in-game 'story mode' is meant for people who have never heard of IVs and couldn't tell the difference between a Jolly Archeops and a Calm one. I can't find a link but I think the UK's most recent Black/White ad had someone using a Fighting move against a Flying enemy, and then seeming surprised that it was somehow ineffective lol. It really is as basic as using STABs and knowing the type chart for casual gamers. Point is, for the story mode, there's Ethers and Poke Centres if you're really desperate.

Figured as much, given the image was from what appeared to be a blog website with nothing that amounts to much more than hearsay. The scary thing is, I told my friend who's registered his card details on PSN before and he seemed to shrug it off, as if to say, "Well what can they possibly do with my bank details anyway?" ...:unsure: