Rupert's Read

This pic was taken in Norwich, today. So that's a smiley #Yes2AV! From me and Charles...

Sir;   We are politicians from very different Parties and backgrounds, but we are strongly agreed on one thing: It is high time that the winds of change blew through British politics. If, like us, you think that our political system is broken, then we hope you will vote YES to fairer votes on May 5.   Make no mistake about it: it is organisations such as the BNP and the Communist Party who are praying and campaigning for a NO vote, and desperately hoping that electoral reform is stopped in its tracks. If you think it is fine to let extremists win on a minority of the vote, then feel free to vote NO on May 5. But if you think that your MP should have a majority of the voters in their constituency behind them, then you should vote YES.  Under our current system, most people have an MP that they didn't vote for. More than 2/3 of MPs were elected with fewer than 50% of the vote.  Too many MPs think that they have a job for life. ...

A BBC reporter on 2pm news on Saturday Ap.30 [just now] on Radio 4 spoke of William and Kate as 'Man and wife' . It's official then: women are appendages. Feminism never happened. She promised to 'obey' him... Oh wait: she didn't. This was BBC spin. Pure and simple.   This was an utterly inappropriate turn of phrase. I can barely believe that it occured.   Women and all decent-minded people living in the 21st century will know that the Beeb are even more conservative than the new Duchess of Cambridge - unless this gets apologised for.

Shows clearly what AV is and why it is good!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA3_t-08Vr0&feature=player_embedded#at=112     #Yes2AV!

+++Nigel Farage and Caroline Lucas joins cross party #Yes2AV event+++ UKIP Leader Nigel Farage joined with Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas MP, Alan Johnson MP and Tim Farron yesterday morning at a press conference, calling for a Yes vote on May 5th.  Mr Farage and Ms. Lucas warned that the First Past the Post system was "alienating a whole generation of voters" and called on people to make the positive case for reform in the final week of the campaign. Photos: http://bit.ly/hWrSP5 BBC - AV referendum: 'Real dilemma' for Labour says Johnson: http://bbc.in/e3CB6p ++News Links: Labour Yes - Wipe the Smile off Cameron's Face. Vote Yes: http://bit.ly/feC47C BBC Newsnight AV Special: http://bbc.in/eElUrI Guardian - Jonathan Freedland: AV: a crucial 'baby step' if we are to break Britain's electoral reform taboo: http://bit.ly/gR3BbP Guardian - Say yes to AV at referendum to hurt Tories, Labour tells supporters: http://bit.ly/i7Wu4e Independ...

My letter, printed in today's INDY:   Andrew Grice (Inside Westminster, 23 April) recycles the conventional wisdom that the introduction of #AV will benefit the Lib Dems. But no one knows what effect AV will have on the Lib Dems. This is because AV, by eliminating tactical voting attributed to the "wasted vote" argument, changes first-preference voting behaviour too. So it is entirely possible that, where Lib Dems currently win seats, they may do worse under AV, because voters who currently lend them their "tactical votes" will no longer do so. One thing we know for sure about AV, from the Australian experience, is that AV is terrible news for extremist and racist parties, which probably explains why the BNP are vigorously arguing for a No vote on 5 May. This is because racists virtually never win a majority at the ballot box – and a majority, not merely a plurality, of the votes is what one needs to win, under AV. So it is quite likely that the...

Excerpt from a TIMES article: Bucks Fizz can help you make your mind up about AV (By Dr. Alan Renwick, Reading University) Unless you’re an election junkie like me, you’re probably either bamboozled or bored (or both) by the debate over AV. Most people get the basics that under AV you can rank the candidates. But then how are these preferences counted? Does AV give some voters extra votes? Is the weight that AV gives to lower preferences fair? Thankfully, most of us know more about voting systems than we realise: we’re used to them from The Eurovision Song Contest, The X Factor, even figure skating and a host of other non-political contests. To see the basic case for AV, look at the difference between Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor. BGT uses first-past-the-post, the current Westminster system. There are ten contestants in the final; whoever gets most votes wins. The trouble is that if votes are widely spread across the contestants, victory could be secured on little more than a ...

The Jackson 5 call for #Yes2AV vote! ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMVP3SlQNio&feature=player_embedded

A terrible warning from the nuclear frontline. A call to act, to we who may yet sleepwalk into nuclear madness: _________________________________________________________   Thank you very much for your concern for our well being and lives after the disaster in Japan one month ago.   The Tokyo area, where I live, has not been so much affected so far, but, as you read in news articles or see on TV news in your countries, people from the easternmost areas, in particular, those areas directly affected by the tsunami and the nuclear power plant devastation, have been forced to lead a very hard life.  (As of the 15th of April, the death toll has risen to more than 13,000, and the missing to more than 15,000. Also, about 130,000 people still continue to live at shelters.)   I also would like to draw your attention to what happened (due) to the nuclear power plant in Fukushima.  The Japanese government and the Electric Power Companies all over the count...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cluQTDWGd4&feature=player_embedded This vid debunking #No2AV lies about #FPTP, #AV and extremism is crucial! Do watch - and then share widely...   This video will help you to understand why the BNP want you to vote No to AV on May 5, while Operation Black Vote want you to vote Yes. It will explain why Simon Darby, Vice-Chair of the BNP, recently said that "We are never going to get our feet under the table under the AV system." Please watch the video, and then forward the email to all your friends / share the link on Twitter or Facebook. We've got just 2 weeks left now, to change our electoral system for the better - or to be shafted by the Tories, the BNP and the right-wing press, who will be the ones gloating if Britain votes NO on May 5. Let's make it YES, instead...   __________________________________________________________________________________   <a href=" http://www.yestofairervotes.org/ "...

#GreenParty needs your promise! http://www.pledgebank.com/NchElectionDay   Funds for this will help us once again move forward on May 5 - can you assist?

Remarkably, I beat one of the panel's chosen 'top 5' on 1st preferences. An unprecedented achievement in Green Party Lords candidate-selection contests. Irritatingly, I then apparently slipped narrowly below him on transfers... Boo to AV. Bring back FPTP! ;-) [Just joking, obviously -- if one lives by AV, then sometimes one will suffer from it, too... That's democracy.] Thanks so much to all those who supported me, and congratulations to my fellow 6 'selected' candidates. If the Coalition stick to their word (Don't hold your breath! (Would you buy a 2nd-hand car from Nick Clegg?)), we 7 will become Lords...:Here's the relevant passage from the Coalition agreement: "We will establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper-chamber on the basis of proportional representation. The committee will come forward with a draft motion by December 2010 [Note: Obviously the timetable has slipped]. It...

Great #Greenwordsworkshop -ish stuff here: Fantastic from our reframing point of view: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/01/alternative-vote-church-of-england-bishops   Alternative Vote backed by senior Church of England bishops Supporters of electoral reform laud bishops' intervention but NO campaign warns against turning referendum into 'moral crusade'. ...Yes: It's immoral to perpetuate a blatantly undemocratic system like FPTP.    

If AV is a good enough system with which to elect the Labour Leader (and Ed M. wouldn't have become Lab Leader without it), isn't it a good enough system with which to select our MPs? Here's a real challenge for Labour NO supporters: Put your money where your mouth is, and if you are so against AV, then propose that future Lab Leadership elections take place by FPTP ...   And what a bad joke that would be, were it to happen, and were Labour members to have to decide whether (to take the example of the Leadership election we have just had) to 'tactically vote' or not. E.g. Diane Abbott supporters would have had to decide whether or not to abandon her and just vote straight for Ed, without being able to vote for who they really wanted, or whether to risk David winning... I put it to you, everyone in Labour NO, that this thought experiment pretty thoroughly demolishes the case for a NO vote on May 5. It is clear that FPTP is a broken system, in multi-Part...

Just debated John Flack, at a Sixth Form in Wymondham, who like me narrowly missed being elected to the Euro-Parl in 2009 (in his case, for the Tories). He is Regional Head of No2AV here in the East. Before the debate: 20 in favour of Yes, 40 against, 26 undecided. :-(    After the debate, 44 in favour, 42 against. :-)   A hopeful straw in the wind? If we get our arguments right, YES people, we can WIN.   I suspect that crucial to my success was hammering away with the fact that 'If you want Nick Griffin to wake up with a big smile on his face on May 6, then you need to vote NO', and explaining clearly why the BNP were campaigning for a No vote. (Incredibly, Flack genuinely seemed unaware that the BNP were on the No side! As were most of those in the room, before I informe them.) But also crucial was being positive: calling for those in the room to lead the way for Britain to get a new voting system fit for the 21st century, for for a multi-par...

It turns out that #Gaddafi IS a mad dog. Read his mind-blowing and stomach-turning letter to Obama: http://www.libyafeb17.com/2011/04/gaddafis-letter-to-obama/ Utterly incredible - but the letter is authentic.

Click to listen to podcast

Caroline Lucas, on the WESTMINSTER HOUR this weekend: "I’ve taken great comfort from looking at the opinion polls coming out of Scotland at the moment, which show the Greens overtaking the Lib Dems; that is exactly the direction I think we’re likely to be going in. We’ve got the Scottish Parliament elections coming up, as I say, on two polls now Greens have been ahead of the Lib Dems, and it’s very much our strategy to replace the Lib Dems as the third party in British politics ."  Way to go!

Libya is no Iraq   SIR – I am disappointed that so few British people are backing Britain’s stance on Libya. The Iraq attack has clearly cast a long and terrible shadow over the world in general and our foreign policy in particular. What a pity that so many people seem to be unable to take seriously the thought that maybe the UN intervention in Libya is on balance a good thing, because before their eyes is always the image of the quagmire, the illegality and the lies of Iraq. Libya is utterly different from Iraq. It is a legal exemplification of the “responsibility to protect”, begun in response to an authentic uprising; whereas Iraq was an illegal war of aggression. Dr Rupert Read Philosophy Department University of East Anglia, Norwich   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/8424928/Postal-shots-about-the-AV-referendum-that-appear-misleading-to-voters.html  

In response to this impressive #GreenWordsWorkshop piece by my colleague Matt Wootton: http://www.greenwordsworkshop.org/node/26  ... The deepest problem with 'Make it 50', I think, is this: We can't. Or at least, it doesn't feel as if we can; or we are very unlikely to. A slogan needs to involve the listener, to make them think that there is a way that they can really be part of what is being called for. So, for instance, a slogan like "AV: The system to stop extremists" gives one the feeling that one can be part of the stopping of extremists by voting for AV. And one can, in the sense that if the AV referendum is passed then it will be easier to stop the BNP at the ballot box. But 'Make it 50' HIGHLIGHTS as central the actual numerical mechanism by means of which AV works. Not only is this cryptic and vague, it is techy/nerdy, and it focuses the listener's attention directly on the need to get to 50%. Which will for many hearers immed...

Go 8 minutes in to see the live debate: http://www.itv.com/anglia/anglia-late-edition-thursday40134/ This debate between me and 3 MPs took place live on ITV last night: the subject is AV. . . A victory for my side, I think! :-)

Come and check out what the fuss is about: http://www.yes.greenwordsworkshop.org/

Have a read of my new piece on OPEN DEMOCRACY, breathing life into #Yes2AV's campaign...: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/rupert-read/yes-to-av-campaign-says-it-with-postcards