Oh dear. You’ve got to hand it to the anti-AV lot—they’re pretty sneaky. On today’s inevitable daily BBC article on the matter, ex-Labour minister Caroline Flint wades in with her size whatevers:

The suffragettes fought for One Person, One Vote, not a political stitch-up like AV, which has been rejected by almost every country that has used it.

Yes, if you vote for AV, you are ANTI-WOMEN and ANTI-WOMAN-WHO-WANT-EQUALITY.

Unless,  of course—and I might just be guessing here—what the suffragettes were in fact fighting for was the right to vote at all. They weren’t chaining themselves to unmovable objects and chanting catchy slogans like:

Voting rights for women—as long as the United Kingdom retains the first-past-the-post voting system for Parliamentary elections, otherwise we’re really not that fussed.

Flint moans about Nick Clegg’s most recent defence of AV, where he states generations to come would see the ‘no’ arguments as nonsensical. She reminds everyone that Clegg himself called AV a “miserable little compromise”. This, of course, is entirely accurate: AV is a miserable little compromise. But it’s a step forward. Flint doesn’t seem to understand this:

One Person, One Vote – the bedrock of our current system – has stood the test of time and remains the only way to ensure elections are fair.

So under AV, is Flint arguing that random people are somehow given extra votes? Or is she suggesting that FPTP is the “only way to ensure elections are fair”? Man, those countries using proportional representation to ensure their elected ministers actually broadly represent the voting patterns of the country are SUCH IDIOTS with their unfair elections.

Let’s ignore the fact that, at present, it takes three times as many votes to elect a Liberal Democrat than a Conservative. That, clearly, isn’t unfair. (And if your response has anything to do with the Lib Dems in government being a bit rubbish, do sod off. Under PR, we’d have likely had a Lab/Lib coalition from the most recent election, which would have resulted in very different options; instead, we have a very senior partner and a very junior partner, with the latter sadly run by a gutless twit. It’s the overall argument that’s important—that some parties can have MPs elected far more easily than others, which is hardly democratic in any real sense of the word.)

Let’s ignore the fact that, in 2010, we got one elected Green MP when we should have had six, and absolutely no UKIP or BNP MPs exist, despite the parties securing 3.1 and 1.9 per cent of the vote, respectively. (Also, if you’re thinking PHEW!, that’s fine, but part of democracy is that you don’t always get what you want. If 919,546 people voted for UKIP, is it fair that there are no UKIP MPs at all, even if the party is pretty reprehensible? Not unless you have some interesting ideas about what ‘fair’ happens to mean.)

Instead, let’s keep arguing for an outdated system that will, without question, more often elect a Conservative government backed by a minority of votes (because the more liberal vote is split several ways); let’s argue for a system of exclusion for smaller parties; let’s argue for a system that largely eschews the evils of coalition (read: compromise and, in many cases—as evidenced elsewhere in Europe—some degree of continuity) in favour of wild swings between the Conservatives and Labour, with a new incumbent every 10 or 15 years, keen to throw out everything its predecessor did. Because, hey, that’s been working so brilliantly for the UK since World War 2, hasn’t it, so why bother changing anything?

UPDATE: And as @alexwlchan rightly says on Twitter:

If she really hates AV, why didn’t she argue against it when Labour used it to elect their party leaders?

Unsure on the upcoming referendum on the UK voting system? If so, The Observer’s Do we want a fairer election system? op-ed is well worth a read. It’s a balanced, fair piece, addressing most of the major concerns. Not least among them, the argument that coalition would be more likely under AV and OH MY GOD THE CURRENT COALITION IS EVIL ON TOAST AND FULL OF LYING SCUMBAGS. The Observer points out:

Lib Dem U-turns hardly advanced the public’s faith in politicians’ promises. But it is absurd to blame the fact of coalition, as if every manifesto of every winning party before 2010 was fastidiously implemented.

Coalitions are here to stay even under the current system. A hung parliament was elected because neither of the two biggest parties commanded enough support to be trusted alone in government. The idea that they should seek remedy for that decline by propping up a system that helps them cheat is lazy and arrogant.

And for the pro-reform people who are, bizarrely, considering ‘abstaining’ (i.e. not voting) or even voting for FPTP, because they’re not being given the option of AV+ or STV, or because AV has major problems of its own, The Observer has this to say:

AV is not perfect. No system captures the will of the people with photographic realism. The goal is a fair approximate, and FPTP fails utterly. It distorts, obstructs, obscures and perverts voter choices. It causes tens of thousands of votes to be wasted; it forces people to endorse candidates they don’t like, just to punish ones they like even less.

AV will not solve all of the problems of British democracy. It will not undo the harm of the expenses scandal, nor provoke a renaissance of civic participation. It is only a reform. It promises one thing: by taking account of multiple preferences, it would elect a parliament that more accurately describes the political complexion of the nation. That is a start.

The Guardian reports that “BBC activities generated £8.1bn in economic value last year on licence fee income of around £3.6bn,” according to Deloitte. Luckily, the Tories are there to continue kicking the BBC’s face off. After all, we can only have media companies employing lots of people and generating lots of money for the economy if they’re run by Rupert Murdoch or some other pal of senior politicians not publicly funded, because that’s not what Murdoch wants fair and open competition.

Today is International Women’s Day. But the first news article sent my way this morning was Woman Carries Non-Viable Pregnancy Due To Law (expanded on The Republic). It’s practically the opposite of any kind of celebration, instead recounting how a “Nebraska woman said she was denied the ability to end her non-viable pregnancy because of state law”. Instead, she was forced to go into labour naturally, and her baby died 15 minutes after birth, significantly increasing grief and trauma for both parties.

I find it hard to understand how any modern Western nation can still have such laws in 2011 (abortion law is always a thorny issue, but not even having exceptions is draconian), and attempting in this case to justify them on the basis of the ‘sacred nature of life’ is hypocritical, given that Nebraska also has capital punishment. Either life is sacred or it isn’t. Make up your minds.

Also, in a country that’s supposed to be democratic and a shining example of modernity, it’s depressing how much of the USA (albeit at state level) still considers it acceptable to trample all over a woman’s rights, on the basis of religious beliefs.

The BBC reports that the 2011 Census is underway. As always, the form is compulsory but the Census is also anonymous, so your answers “can’t be used against you”, as noted on a few council websites.

The thing is, your answers can be used against the country. Many thorny issues in the UK (such as faith schools) are to do with religion, and a government can use Census results to justify policy. If you’re religious, fair enough—tick the relevant box. But if you’re not, tick the closest answer to ‘none’—don’t get smart and say you subscribe to a faith made up by George Lucas, because otherwise when government simply splits the results into ‘religious’ and ‘not religious’, you’re batting for the other team.

UPDATE: Apparently, the ONS is wise to Jedis. However, the general point stands—only select a religion if you’re actually religious.