AV - 2nd past the post?

And so the juggernaut gets under way. On 5 May Britain will vote whether to adopt AV for Westminster elections. As ever, a certain drowsy numbness pains my sense (Keats? Can't bother to look it up, I'm afraid) when confronted with the need to master this kind of issue. How much time d'you have to put in before you can justify making the trek to the polling station? How is it the intellectual faculties required can still be demanded of the middle-aged, faculties last given a gallop at the towering fence marked "quadratic equations", and ever since then immured in a darkened stable?

OK. I confess. I actually have thought about AV a bit, and here is my gift to the No campaign.

If AV means anything, it means that the candidate with the second largest number of 1st preference votes can win. This happens because if the "winner" gets less than 50%, 2nd preference votes are taken into account as well. And they are given the same weight as 1st preferences.

Why does this matter? Because the likelihood is that people will have put a cross by their 1st preference candidate with a great deal more enthusiasm than for their 2nd preference candidate. To put it another way, why should my vote for the candidate I really wanted to win count for no more than your vote for the candidate you could just about tolerate?

In some cases 3rd, 4th and 5th preferences will be taken into account too. Here it's even worse. Here my 4th preference vote for a candidate I wouldn't touch with a bargepole counts just as much as yours for the candidate you really wanted.

There are a number of other arguments against AV. The counting arrangements will be more expensive. The results will be more susceptible to delay. The Lib Dems will probably do better and a hung parliament will be more likely. Of these, the possibility of not liking the result seems to be the weakest. But the strongest is the sheer unfairness of the process set out above.

Enthusiasts for AV say that the public is crying out for electoral change, and that it's necessary for rejuvenating faith in the political process. Really? Seems to me that what destroys faith in politics is politicians relying on spin, refusing to give straight answers, fiddling their expenses, saying one thing in opposition and doing another in office, preferring lies the public will swallow to hard truths, and putting short term electoral gain ahead of long term benefit to the UK. These are the things destroying faith in politics, not the electoral system.

Still confused? OK. Here's a much easier test. Which side are the Luvvies on? You can save yourself a lot of effort in these situations by simply voting against the people with most Luvvies on board. Because they are almost certainly wrong.

The No to AV campaign have a mixture of politicians from Right and Left, but no one beautiful.

But the Yes campaign! John Cleese, Joanna Lumley, Eddie Izzard and Stephen Fry! And Helena Bonham Carter! And Colin Firth!

That clinches it. AV = 2nd past the post. You read it here first.