Afternoon:
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On May 5, Londoners will once again go to the polls. This time, you won't be voting for your Mayor, or local councillors, or for your MP.
You'll be taking part in the country's first referendum for over three decades, deciding whether to change our voting system. I want to make a personal appeal about why this matters so much - and why you should vote no to AV.
Now, there are lots of things we need to change about our politics. We need to make politicians more accountable; government more transparent; and we need to hand more power back to people. But one thing we should not change is our current voting system, which is clear, simple and decisive.
It may sound odd for a Prime Minister to write this but the great thing about our current first-past-the-post system is that it lets voters throw dog-tired governments out on their ear. I will always remember May 1997 and seeing the removal vans outside Downing Street and John Major having to walk away. Yes, as a Conservative it was painful. But it was right - the last Conservative government had run out of steam and it was time for change. And I'm just old enough to remember Labour being booted out in 1979 - the last time they ran our economy into the ground. Again, they'd had their day, it was right for them to go, and our country got what it desperately needed and wanted: a new Conservative Government led by Margaret Thatcher.
The problem with AV is that it makes this all more unlikely. There could well be occasions where we have a genuine second-choice government. Indeed, if the last election had been under AV, there would be the chance that Gordon Brown would still be Prime Minister. OK, the last election was not decisive in terms of who won. But it was certainly decisive in terms of who lost. And I think any system that keeps dead governments hanging in there on life support is a massive backward step for our politics.
But there's another argument I want to make - and one, again, you might find surprising coming from a Prime Minister leading the first coalition government since the Second World War: we shouldn't vote for a system that could make coalitions the norm rather than the exception.
Now, it won't surprise you that I think the current Coalition, which came together in the national interest, is right for Britain. And I do think our programme for government is the right remedy to cure our country's ills and lay the foundations of stronger, more prosperous, more successful future. It was a programme that came about through genuine dialogue and compromise.
If you go back to the General Election last year, I can honestly say, hand on heart, that everything that was in the Conservative manifesto was clear, costed, and doable - because I knew if we won, I'd be held accountable for that. Nothing was in there that we didn't believe in and weren't going to do.
But here's the problem with a system that could lead to almost permanent coalition government.
Once it's clear that coalitions are more likely, politicians will start putting things in their manifestos that they know sound attractive but aren't achievable, because they know that in a coalition they will not be held to account for them. They might even put in things they don't believe in, because they can use them as bargaining chips in coalition negotiations; things they can toss aside in smoke-filled rooms as they haggle and horse-trade with other parties. Can you think of anything that would be worse for our politics? People say the current system lacks accountability - AV would make it worse and would run the risk of leaving a litter of broken promises, meaningless commitments and empty words.
So it really is simple: if you want a system that lets you, as the Americans say, "throw the rascals out" and that also keeps our politicians honest, you must vote on May 5th, and you must vote "No".
The biggest danger right now is that not enough people turn out to vote and Britain sleepwalks into this second-rate system, waking up on May 6th with a voting system that damages our democracy permanently.
But, in many ways, your vote alone is not enough. In the days and weeks ahead, you also need to challenge your friends and colleagues who are thinking of voting "Yes". Ask them why they are voting for it. I bet you none of their arguments will stack up - and you need to take them on.
So when they say: "AV will make every vote count", tell them it won't. It will actually make some people's votes -especially those who vote for extremist parties - get counted more than others.
They'll get two, three, four, perhaps even five bites of the cherry when many others only get one.
When they say: "AV will make MPs work harder and tackle safe seats", tell them there's no evidence for that. In Australia, where they use AV (and incidentally want to get rid of it) nearly half of all seats are considered safe.
And when they say: "at least MPs need to get 50% of the vote in their constituency under AV", tell them that argument is wrong too. The 50% threshold applies to the votes counted, not the number of votes cast in the election. If you decide only to mark down a couple of preferences, and both candidates are knocked out in the early rounds, your ballot paper is thrown in the bin. The only votes that count towards the 50 per cent are the votes that make it to the final round. It's a complete fix.
This referendum really matters. You're not just being asked about how many boxes you want to be able to tick on your ballot paper. You're being asked about how you want our democracy to work. Do you want a system that makes it harder to kick out governments? Do you want a system that encourages politicians to make promises they can't keep? Do you want a situation where people who come second could win?
Winston Churchill described AV as the system which means elections "will be determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates". Our greatest prime minister said "No" to AV - Londoners should do the same.
Reader views (7)
I will not vote for AV, not because I am against it but you have shown how easily the lib dems can be corrupted, and on top of that it will make your reformation of British Social Democracy all the more difficult to reverse. I, unlike you, do not want an even more unequal Britain.
- mhinder Bhopal, west wickham, 17/04/2011 12:36
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The leader of the Conservatives is a hypocrite and a purveyor of nonsense. Had the first past the post system been used in his parties leadership election of 2005 then they would have been led from then by the less consensual and therefore less electable David Davis. Cameron owes his leadership of the party to the AV system which ensured that although the majority of the party membership’s first preference was for a more right-wing candidate prone to political adventurism at the expense of the constituents he should have been busy working for, it was he who was deemed to have the broadest support across the party and would bring them the greatest success with the generally progressive British public overall.
He owes his current premiership to the politics of compromise as after the majority of the electorate had voted against the tory party, it was the parties ability to make a mutually beneficial arrangement that the liberal democrats, in which both our still duty bound to remain accountable to their voters and members or will lose their support, if he was going to be able govern effectively.
Like the fact that he has come out against both of these things, all of his arguments he has used in this piece is daft, patronising and extremely dubious.
Just one example: He bemoans that in Australia that almost 50% of constituencies are safe seats whilst neglecting to mention that in the UK under FPTP the figure is around 80%.
- Peter Hearn, South London, 16/04/2011 00:30
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Dear Mr Cameron, thank you for your propoganda rhetoric. I find it telling that a key point you make is that AV would encourage parties to throw red herrings into their manifestos to lure voters and use as bargaining chips. Forgive me, as I was under the impression that the Torys have been doing this for decades, and it seems that they have already considered this continuation as an appropriate tactic under AV. Interesting really, because you fail to see both sides of this coin (as with most of the points you raised), the flip side being that what happens if the party gets in and then has to live up to those promises! You yourself say that you would be held accountable! (Perhaps you forgot that bit).
I've also pretty much had it with consistent comments regrading the falacy that AV will give power to extremist parties. You have to remember that parties will only gain power if people vote for them (or vote for them as a preference), so to win power they will need to gain the support of the people. If they do that, then the mainstream parties are the ones that need to look at themselves.
You also say that that our current FPTP system is a way of kicking out tired old governments. Yet your comments discuss only two parties.
You are right, I think I've had it with tired old goverments, I think we all have... So I will be voting YES to AV, in order to give ourselves that opportunity and CHOICE to oust tired old Labour and Tory governments once and for all.
- Luis Nieves, London, 15/04/2011 09:59
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Here, here, Mr Cameron!!!! I have been living in Australia for 15 years and voting under an AV system and it does not work. We had a general election last year and the one who had won (Labor) actually had less votes than Tony Abbots Liberal Party. Anyone who thinks AV will work, come to Australia and see how we are absolutly gagging for the First Past the Post, a system where if you have more people voting for you, you actually win.
- Mel, Adelaide, Australia, 15/04/2011 06:27
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I'm not thinking what you're thinking, Dave.
- Mike, London, 14/04/2011 23:32
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Oh dear. What is this mantra that ex PR people cling to, ie; if I say something often enough it will become true. A recent example being 'we're all in this together' but the current being 'AV is undemocratic'. My question to Mr Cameron is; if AV is so undemocratic, why is it the only system you would allow your coalition partners to campaign on?
So, we must stick to the current system which is 'clear, simple and decisive'. One thing that is clear about the latter is no matter how much you're hated, you're guaranteed around 200 seats before anyone has voted. The current government is the third in succession to be introducing electoral boundary changes which they hope will capture those few thousand votes that decide elections. Be it Worcester Women or Mondeo Man, these are the votes the big parties are chasing, the rest are in the bag. Increasingly low turnouts as a result of disillusionment brings about even more disparity and as we have seen in local and European elections, allows the extremists in.
If it's the Unionists propping up the Tories in the 90's or the lib/Lab pact of the 70's, we've seen enough example of unconfirmed coalition under the current system. The article suggests that the current coalition is somewhat better and purer than any we would get under AV. Maybe we're moving forward, rather than the stop start, repeal all previous party laws, that we're so tired of.
I say vote AV and you may discourage 'politicians to make promises they can't keep'
- Patrick Pilcher, London, 14/04/2011 23:26
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If you're against it, I'm for it
- Sceptic, London, 14/04/2011 14:46
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