Rawnsley: Adopting AV would be a very British revolution

Seasoned political commentatotr Andrew Rawnsley in this morning's Observer decides that AV would not produce a saintly Commons, but would make MPs more representative of their constituents... Amidst other points, Rawnsley starts by underlining the importance of the decision that the nation is about to make:

The referendum is only just beginning to impinge on the consciousness of the nation, but between the politicians the struggle is already intense. Good. With the caveat that it would be more dignified for both sides to eschew comparing each other with the Nazis, a hot debate on this question is exactly what we need. I'm perplexed by those commentators who have adopted a pose of lofty scorn towards the referendum, dismissing it with a sneer through a yawn. They proclaim that the public is not interested in the way we elect our governments. The most condescending even say we ought not to be troubling the poor little heads of the voters with a referendum at all. Really? This is a country that likes to think of itself as a pioneer of representative democracy. We are fond of the pride-swelling remark made by John Bright, in a speech in support of electoral reform in the 19th century, that: "England is the mother of all parliaments."

Yet the people of England, and the peoples of the other nations of the UK, have never been offered any opportunity to set the basic rules of our democracy. This is the first time that the people have been given a say about how we elect members of parliament. If there is a more important subject for a referendum than that, I can't think of it.

Rawnsley is clearly pro-AV and musters several compelling arguments in defence of the idea (one follows):

Far from being hideously foreign, adopting AV would be a very British thing to do. It would not be a revolutionary break, but an evolutionary change. AV preserves the feature of the current system which has most merit – the direct link between an MP and a constituency – while addressing some of the most pernicious flaws of first past the post, such as the fact that two thirds of MPs were sent to parliament last May without the support of a majority of voters.

 His opinion of FPTP is clear:

.... there is a different electoral system in which some votes do count for a great deal more than others. There is an electoral system under which the complexion of the government is usually decided by a minority of voters in the minority of seats that are swing marginals. There is an electoral system which induces politicians to pander only to this minority of voters rather than encouraging them to reach out more widely. There is a system under which extremists, whom the majority would never want to see elected, can nevertheless win seats with minority support.

That system is called first past the post.

Do read the whole article as an excellent example of the pro-AV perspective.