Apathy and anger dominate as AV decision looms

'A referendum? Really?' - Both camps struggle to convince voters of importance of 5 May poll – in town that would have had a different MP under AV

The Guardian today tells a tale of 'apathy and anger' in the run up to the national referendum on 5 May:

Paul Holmes surveys the celebrated crooked spire and historic market square in his former constituency of Chesterfield and shrugs. "It's almost certain," the former Liberal Democrat MP agrees. "But you can't tell with voters."

The British Election Study suggests it is a certainty. Under AV, the alternative voting system subject to a referendum on 5 May, the study says this Derbyshire constituency would have been one of 43 to elect a different MP. The seat's Labour incumbent, Toby Perkins, would have seen his perilously slim 549 majority wiped out by second and third preferences and Holmes, 54, a former Lib Dem party chairman and history teacher, would not be the ex-MP he is today.

He says: "Nearly two out of three votes were against Labour last year. But Labour won. And that's just ludicrous. The people defending first past the post [FPTP], I just don't know how they can. It's absolutely indefensible, excepting that turkeys don't vote for Christmas."

History acknowledges the part Chesterfield has played in past political upsets. The Cock and Pynot inn, now a museum two miles from the town centre at Old Whittington, was where parliamentarian conspirators plotted the fall of James II in favour of William III in the 1688 Glorious Revolution.

Holmes is hoping a similar zeal for change will galvanise local voters to put a cross in the yes box. To persuade them, he and other Lib Dem canvassers are pounding the constituency streets, pushing local election leaflets through 48,000 letterboxes along with literature explaining why AV is so important.

But his passion appears not to have translated to the people of a town that for more than a century prospered on the sweat of coalminers and toil of engineering and was largely Labour.

Now the pits are grassed over, housing and retail developments colonise old factory sites, and Chesterfield is reinventing itself with greater reliance on smaller businesses and technology. With the Lib Dems defending 38 seats to Labour's 10 on Chesterfield council at next month's elections, Holmes feels he can argue: "The social and economic profile is changing. It's no longer a Labour town." Except under FPTP.

An interesting article, especially from the point of view of (non)-participation amongst the voting public... The feature rounds up with a summary of seats that would have produced a different result under AV in the last general election:

Research in a British Election Study working paper from the University of Essex suggests that under AV 43 seats would have been won by a different party at the 2010 general election.

Lab to Con: Dudley North.

Lab to Lib Dem: Aberdeen South, Edinburgh North and Leith, Edinburgh South, Newport East, Swansea West, Ashfield, Birmingham Hall Green, Bristol South, Chesterfield, Durham City, Hull North, Islington South and Finsbury, Lewisham West and Penge, Newcastle upon Tyne North, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Oxford East, Rochdale, Sheffield Central, Streatham.

Con to Lab: Aberconwy, Cardiff North, Brentford and Isleworth, Broxtowe, Hendon, Hove, Lancaster and Fleetwood, Sherwood, Stockton South, Warrington South.

Con to Lib Dem: Montgomeryshire, Bristol North West, Camborne and Redruth, Colne Valley, Harrogate and Knaresborough, Newton Abbot, Oxford West and Abingdon, Reading East, St Albans, Truro and Falmouth, Watford, Weston-super-Mare, York Outer.