I have yet to hear anyone say it is the system they want. I have seem some (admittedly rather speculative) analysis in the Guardian that seems to suggest it would have had very little effect on the Lib-Dem number of seats in last week's election. The suggestion was that the only beneficiary would actually have been the Labour party, but obviously we can't put too much faith in analysis that attempts to predict how people would place their 2nd vote.
The Guardian item suggests that Labour would gain 4 seats (not a tremendous boost), the Conservatives would lose 25, and the Lib Dems would gain 22. The suggestion that a 39% increase in the number of seats counts as "very little effect" I believe evidently shows that the Garuniad's arithmetic skills are even more lacking than their spillchucker skills.
AV is certainly better than the existing system - perhaps not much better, but better nonetheless. Certainly, had it been in place in this election it would have made the past 5 days much more interesting, as the Lib Dems could then grant a majority to both the Conservatives and Labour, so the flurry of negotiations may well have been much more intense, with the Lib Dems holding a much stronger hand.
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andrewducker) wrote2010-05-11 09:04 am
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AV is certainly better than the existing system - perhaps not much better, but better nonetheless. Certainly, had it been in place in this election it would have made the past 5 days much more interesting, as the Lib Dems could then grant a majority to both the Conservatives and Labour, so the flurry of negotiations may well have been much more intense, with the Lib Dems holding a much stronger hand.