Skip to main content

Unique cross-party letter printed in today's EDP: Diverse Norfolk politicians backing #AV

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. Half of all seats have been in the same party's control since 1970. This can breed arrogance and complacency. When MPs take their constituents for granted, abuses of the system are more likely.

 AV gives more power to individual voters. It's not complicated. It's as easy as 1,2,3...

 THIS is our chance for electoral and political reform.

   Yours faithfully,

 Stuart Agnew MEP (UKIP), Ian Gibson (former MP for Norwich North), Norman Lamb MP (LibDem, North Norfolk), C'llr. Adrian Ramsay (Deputy Leader, the Green Party of England and Wales), C'llr. Rupert Read (Co-ordinator, East of England Green Party), Simon Wright MP (LibDem, Norwich South).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reasonable manners, in the blogosphere

Dear readers of Rupert's Read; One thing I am pleased about about this blog is that when we have had debates or disagreements here, they have virtually always been good-tempered. Because the norm out there in the blogosphere is often not like that. Take 'Comment is Free', for example, on the Guardian Unlimited site: the level of debate on CIF is pretty awful, frankly, in terms of civility. It is a very unpleasant place to take part in any debate, generally, unless perhaps (as most commenters do) one hides behind the veil of anonymity (which 'ain't allowed' here). And the truth is, in case any fellow commenters reading this don't realise it, that there are many many people who get put off even reading (let alone posting to) CIF because of the volume of plain nasty comments that they risk getting, when they do. I am slightly singling out CIF here, because I believe that this is actually one of the worst places on the blogosphere in terms of this kind of ...
15 comments
Read more

Medialens under the lens, over Syria and Libya: Becoming the new Dave Sparts?

I have long been an active supporter of Medialens ( http://www.medialens.org/ ). Like many others, I have supported them with money, time, tips, and I have been proud to have done so. For they have done very important groundbreaking work over the years challenging the inanities and distortions of the 'mainstream' media. They have for example written important critiques of mainstream media coverage of dangerous climate change, of Iraq Body Count, of the corporate nature of most of our media, and much more besides. They have held the corporate media to account time and again. They ought to be saluted for all of that. It is therefore with a sense of deep regret (as well as of some foreboding) that I have finally to write to address the ways in which, lately, some of the wheels seem to be coming off their wagon. An early warning sign perhaps was their long-running spat with George Monbiot, over the Rwandan genocide and the terrible atr...
16 comments
Read more