Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Was David Cameron the Tories 2nd choice?


On Friday 18th February David Cameron made his first No to AV speech in which he said of the Alternative Vote:
"It could mean a Parliament of second choices".

Now look at how David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative Party in 2005 and the first thing you notice is that The Conservatives didn't use First-Past-The-Post for their elections instead they use a  process of elimination rounds - (a system remarkable in it's resemblance to AV) The first two rounds were for MPs to vote on and the final round was a postal ballot of Tory Party membership. In the first ballot of MPs David Davis won winning 6 votes more than Cameron. So given Cameron's "Parliament of second choices" quote doesn't that mean that at least amongst his own MPs David Cameron was their second choice and their first choice was David Davis.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2010/02/how_av_made_cameron_tory_leade.html
Again on AV David Cameron says:

"Supporters of unpopular parties end up having their votes counted a number of times...
...potentially deciding the outcome of an election...
...while people who back more popular parties only get one vote."
So following this logic was it fair then that supporters of Kenneth Clarke (who won the fewest votes and was therefore eliminated after the first round) were able to vote again in the second round? 
Also why did the Conservatives feel the need to conduct their election over three elimination rounds of voting when they could have have just had one First-Past-The-Post ballot of membership with all four names on the ballot paper? Perhaps they wanted to ensure that the elected winner had the backing of the majority of voters and not just the largest minority.


So why is David Cameron No to AV and why doesn't the Tory Party use First-Past-The-Post for their elections? is it just a case of what is good enough for US to use is not good enough for THEM to use
Or perhaps David Cameron believes that under First-Past-The-Post the Tories will stand a much better chance of winning a majority in 2015 - after all thanks to First-Past-The-Post there were only 16,000 votes in it last time - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7120733.ece
Chilling!
Yet another good reason for us all to vote YES to Fairer Votes on Thursday May 5th

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