AV REFERENDUM A DEAD DUCK?

The AV referendum is already in trouble today, after claims emerged that Nick Clegg bluffed David Cameron, into offering the Lib Dems a referendum on a change to the voting system as part of the coalition. Apparently he told Dave a whopper when he implied that Labour (aka Lord Mandelson) offered AV without the need for a referendum. This has led to an absolute glut of meaningless double speak from all sides.

The suggestion in a BBC documentary is set to deepen anger on Tory benches that a referendum was ever offered, making it more likely that legislation to change the voting system will struggle to avoid a defeat in the Commons in September. So that’s the Labour party officially against it. That combined with the opposition of the Tories should sound the death knell of the whole thing before it has even got off the starters block. Which is just as well as far as I am concerned. The invidious choice between FPTP or AV was really as far as I could see no choice at all. Neither system is any way proportional and both have major faults. I had a feeling that a “No” vote would lead to Cameron claiming that the public were happy with FPTP while a “Yes” vote would lumber us with a system equally as bad. Either way the whole thing would disappear off the agenda for a generation.

On Monday, the shadow cabinet decided to vote against the bill on the referendum because it has been coupled with what Labour described yesterday as gerrymandering of constituency boundaries. What a shocking revelation, as if Labour never did anything like that in their 13 years.

Cameron described the Labour volte-face as "a descent into complete and utter opportunism", pointing out that Labour had been the only party to go into the election promising to hold a referendum on the issue. Yes but David they lost the election remember.

Rumours have frequently circulated in Tory circles that Clegg, in highly pressurised coalition talks after the election, managed to outmanoeuvre Cameron by intimating he had been offered more by Labour in parallel post-election talks than was actually the case.

Cameron was asked by Nick Robinson in a documentary – Five Days that Changed Britain, to be broadcast on BBC2 tonight – whether he misled his MPs by saying Labour would give the Lib Dems voting reform without a referendum. Cameron replied: "No, because I was absolutely certain in my own mind that was the case, and I had I think good reason to be certain. I had a number of people had told me what was, what they thought was going on and conversations that were taking place about AV without a referendum. I'd also had a conversation with Nick [Clegg] when I'd argued very vigorously that you couldn't do alternative vote without a referendum – it would be wrong."

Clegg is then asked whether it is inaccurate to say he told Cameron he could get the alternative vote without a referendum from Labour. Clegg replies: "The perception, which I think was accurate, was discussions are out and it might have been an offer that might had been made and might have been considered. In answer to your direct question – was it ever formally made to me? – no, it wasn't formally made to me."

Talk about meaningless double speak. Its a pretty sad state of affairs when a government has to trot out this kind of drivel when its less that three months old. And they think they will last five years?

Lord Mandelson, one of the chief Labour negotiators, told the Guardian last night that in the first talks between Labour and the Lib Dems negotiating teams on the Saturday after the election, "it was suggested by the Liberal Democrats that the legislation introducing AV could be passed in its entirety for the alternative vote and then possibly a validating referendum would be held. It was a very odd, curious proposal and I found it difficult to understand.

"Soon after I had a call from the editor of the Times, James Harding, and he seemed like he was acting as a mouthpiece of George Osborne, asking whether we had made that offer to the Liberal Democrats, and I said no. It would have been incredibly wrong. The idea had disappeared by the following day."

Good old Petronella Lord Voldermort, still stirring things up I see. Well I guess he has to make up plenty ground after pissing off so many people on his own side (whatever that is) with his book of revelations.

A Lib Dem spokesman confirmed last night that no offer had been made in the formal discussions between Labour and the Lib Dems, but suggestions of a big offer on constitutional reform were made through other channels.

The dispute over the origins of the coalition is not academic since some Tory MPs remain furious that a referendum was ever offered. Edward Leigh, a leading Tory rightwinger, said on Tuesday that if the AV system had been used in 1997, "the Tory Party would have been reduced to a pathetic rump of 65 MPs".

Meanwhile, Nearly 45 Tory MPs have called for the Electoral Commission to change the date of the referendum from May next year on the grounds that it should not be held on the same day as national elections in Scotland and Wales, as well as English local elections. Peter Hain, the shadow Welsh secretary, writing on the Guardian website, said: "Clegg has allowed himself to be sandbagged by his Tory partners in his otherwise laudable attempt to introduce a fairer electoral system, probably losing a once-in-a-generation opportunity for electoral reform.

"Instead of introducing a separate bill on the alternative vote referendum which would have been supported by Labour in a vote through parliament, the government has spatchcocked it together with the most blatant gerrymander of parliamentary constituency boundaries since the days of the rotten boroughs."

Talk about mixed messages, didn’t the shadow cabinet vote against that laudable aim?