Dave says NO

The debate has been rumbling on for weeks but the big day has finally arrived: today Britain gets to vote on a fundamental change to they way it elects its parliament.

But sadly today's referendum doesn't give us the long-awaited opportunity to change the voting system for the better. Instead we are presented with the option of keeping the existing system or moving to an unsatisfactory fudge of a system cooked up in the heat of coalition negotiations between Cameron and Clegg a year ago.

A real change would mean proportional representation, where every vote would count and a vote for a minor party like the Greens or UKIP would mean increased representation for that party in parliament. This is the system that most progressives, including Clegg's LibDems, desperately want. I have one reservation about PR in that it would mean the end of constituency MPs, but I think I could live with that.

However, Clegg's desperation for a sniff of power at any cost led him to sacrifice many of his principles and the first to go was PR. There was no way Cameron would agree to PR: it would ensure that there would never be another Tory government. Instead, being the skilled political mover he is, Cameron offered Clegg the very least he knew he could get away with and Clegg jumped at the prospect.

So here we are, a year later voting on AV. And what does AV offer us? It offers us multiple votes, choosing as many candidates as we like in order from one to how ever many are on the ballot paper, encouraging us to have a little protest vote as our number one choice. So the votes for independents, Greens and UKIP will go up. But will there be any more seats for these parties? Not in a hundred years. The sole beneficiaries of this will be politicians of the centre. Or, more accurately, politicians that profess to be of the centre. Once voters have had their protest vote or two followed by their real choice they will then opt for their least worst choice: to borrow from Goodness Gracious Me, "the blandest thing on the menu". For Tories this will be "not Labour" and for the left it will be "not the Tory". In other words, more often than not, it will be the Liberal Democrat candidate.

Under AV, parliament would be made up of fewer Tories, fewer Labour but significantly more LibDems, with LibDems almost always holding the balance of power. Minority parties would continue to not get a look in. We've had one year of coalition government and I'd say that is more than enough. However a yes vote for AV is a vote for almost permanent coalition with a group of minority LibDem MPs sitting in Labour and Tory cabinets stopping both major parties from carrying out their electoral pledges.

Another downside to AV is that it's complicated. Not for you, dear blogger/Tweeter, but for the immigrant who can barely read English, the shy school leaver with no qualifications who is too scared to ask for help at the polling station, the ninety-five-year-old woman who's been voting for Labour with a single cross since 1945. It will disenfranchise the people who are least likely to vote in the first place.

I voted NO today. So should you. Not to spite Clegg, boost Cameron or any of the shameful arguments that have been put forward during this campaign, but because AV is not good for democracy, not good for Britain and not good for any future Labour government.