Fostertom do you mean to suggest including those named in a Federation of the British Isles or something along those lines? If so I have no objections as long as everyone coughs up equally as a percentage of their worth to the central government to pay for the centralised functions.

http://imgur.com/a/hgmbQ

A neat visual critique of FPTP/AV

Posted By: rhamduSo was that good value?

Yes, he is a compliant whipping boy who has to announce all the crap. I have visions of him dressed in leather straps, hanging from the wall in the cabinet office, something along the lines of Pulp Fiction when Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames have the punch up in the shop. Only thing that keeps me interested in politics.
And who did Andrew Marr have an affair with, Blunket's Dog, Oh, not allowed to mention that am I, because it has a super injunction on it.

@biffvernon - not really impartial - but I like it

Despite some articles suggesting the yes campaign doesn't stand a chance I think that its actually fairly even at present...

I think that this is the chance of a generation to (slightly) improve our voting system and better represent the significant minority who (would) vote green.

We're stuck in the dark ages as usual

Perhaps it wd have been better for the reformers to not settle for the half baked AV proposal, but hold out for a proposal that cd be convincingly promoted.

Trouble is every voting system has its pro's and con's, AV was possible the easier to understand of the 'other' voting systems, but not as easy to understand as FPTP.
I think Henry Ford had the right idea about choice.

Hi,
Actually up here in Scotland we’ve just used an alternative to First past The Post FPTP as the Additional Member Hybrid System is used for the Scottish parliament, so its worth while considering how that played out.
As the regional lists knock off the constituency winner “if” they are on the list (can be an alternative candidate as well) these result came in later and didn’t deliver what was expected (well at least be the pundits). The Lib Dems / Green / others in some regions weren’t making the cut (cant confirm the threshold – anybody?) and the SNP were pulling substantial votes (when not winning out right) so contrary to expectation as the lists came in, then instead of some balance towards the lesser parties the SNP continued to gain. The system is supposed to temper down a landslide, but the SNP continued to gain through the regional’s.
It was quite amusing to see the radio/TV folk talking up or down the AV vote whilst at the same time struggling to explain what the Scottish elections were showing as in fact they already were using a composite to FPTP. Probably wasn’t mentioned in England anyway.

Cheers, mike up north

For info from wiki
The Voting systems
Party Lists: (proportional)
Party list systems have two main forms - open and closed. Each party provides a list of candidates. With the open system, voters put a cross by the name of a candidate; with the closed system they put a cross by the name of a party. Voters have only one vote and seats are allocated in proportion to the number of votes received.
List PR is used to elect candidates in multi-member districts, or sometimes in an entire country. Party list systems vary considerably across the globe, determined chiefly by the size of districts, thresholds for securing seats and the manner in which the seats are allocated.
There are a number of methods used to translate votes into seat allocation. The most common are the d'Hondt method, the Sainte-Lague method, the Huntington-Hill method and the largest remainder (LR) method.
Where used: Party lists are the most common method of election in the world. Places where they are used include British elections to the European Parliament (excluding Northern Ireland, which uses STV); Israel's Parliament, the Knesset; and The Netherlands' Second Chamber.
Single Transferable Vote (STV): (semi-proportional)
STV uses preferential voting in multi-member constituencies. Each voter has one vote. This vote can transfer from the voter's first preference, to second preference and so on if the voter's preferred candidate has no chance of being elected or has enough votes already. Candidates do not need a majority of votes to be elected, just a known 'quota' or share of the votes determined by the size of the electorate and the number of positions to be filled.
Where used: Republic of Ireland - all elections except for the presidency and by-elections when Alternative Vote is used; Northern Ireland - Assembly, European and local government elections; Scotland - local elections from 2007; Malta - all elections; Australian Senate; Tasmanian House of Assembly; New Zealand - various local authorities; India - the indirect elections to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's federal Parliament.
Additional Member System: (hybrid)
AMS is a hybrid voting system, part First Past The Post and part closed party list, the party list element added on to make the result more proportional. Outside the UK it is more commonly referred to as Mixed Member Proportional (MMP).The exact proportion of constituency representatives and list representatives varies from country to country; the constituency element usually makes up between 50 and 80 per cent. Voters typically have two votes - one for a candidate and one for a party.
When all the votes are in, each constituency returns a winner, in the traditional FPTP style. If a candidate was standing in a constituency as well as on a party list, their name is taken off the list, with everyone below them moving up a place. The additional members are then allocated with the aim of tallying the number of seats won by each party to their share of the vote. Some systems do this solely on the basis of the party vote, others include the constituency vote too.
Where used: Scottish Parliament; Welsh Assembly; Greater London Assembly; Italy - Senate and Chamber of Deputies; Germany - Bundestag; New Zealand - House of Representatives; Mexico - Camara de Diputados (lower house); Bolivia - Camara de Diputados (lower house); Lesotho - National Assembly (lower house).
First Past The Post: (majoritarian)
First Past The Post voting, currently used to elect members of the House of Commons, takes place in single-member constituencies. The voter simply puts a cross in a box next to one candidate. The candidate with the most votes in the constituency wins. All other votes count for nothing. In some places, such as a number of English and Welsh local elections, FPTP is used to elect several representatives at one time. This system is known as the Multiple Non-Transferable Vote (MNTV).
FPTP is also known as simple majority voting or plurality voting.
Where used: FPTP is the second most widely used voting system in the world, after party lists. Countries which use this system include the UK, the US, Canada and India.
The Limited Vote: (majoritarian)
The Limited Vote is used in multi-member constituencies. It allows each elector more than one vote, but fewer votes than there are candidates to choose from. The candidates with the most votes get elected.
Where used: The Spanish Senate; Gibraltar's House of Assembly, where electors have eight votes for the 15 seats; various local-level elections, such as those for municipal offices in some US States.
Alternative Vote: (majoritarian)
The Alternative Vote (AV) is very much like First Past The Post. It is used to elect representatives for single-member constituencies, but rather than simply marking a solitary 'X' on the ballot paper, the voter has the chance to rank the candidates on offer by putting a '1' by their first preference, a '2' by their second preference and so on.
If a candidate receives a majority of first-preference votes (more people put them as number one than all the rest combined), then they are elected. If no candidate gains a majority on first preferences, then the second-preference votes of the candidate who finished last on the first count are redistributed. This process is repeated until someone gets over 50 per cent.
AV is also known as Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and Preferential Voting.
Where used: Australian House of Representatives; Australian Legislative Assemblies ("lower houses") of all states and territories (bar Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, which both use STV); Australian Legislative Council in Tasmania; Irish Presidential election; By-elections to the Dáil (the lower house of the Irish Parliament); By-elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly; Papua New Guinea National Parliament; Fijian House of Representatives; numerous American Mayoral and district elections; Student Union elections.
Alternative Vote Plus:
The Alternative Vote Plus (AV+) was invented by the 1998 Independent Commission on the Voting System, commonly known as the Jenkins Commission. The Commission described the system as a "limited" form of AMS aimed at achieving a balance between the requirements of "broad proportionality" and "stable government".
AV+ was created with the intention of being the alternative to First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) in Labour's promised referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. The referendum never came and AV+ has, for now, been confined to the parliamentary archives.
Supplementary Vote (SV):
The SV system is similar to the Alternative Vote system, but under SV voters are limited to a first and second preference only. All first choice votes are tallied and if the candidate has a majority they are elected. If no candidate receives a majority, the top two candidates are retained, and the rest eliminated. The second-preference votes of the eliminated candidates are then counted, and any for either of the top two candidates are added to their first-round totals. Whichever candidate has the most votes after these second-preferences have been allocated is declared the winner.
Where used: Directly elected English mayors, most notably the Mayor of London.

Posted By: jamesingramour media are a bunch of #+*%ers

I quite liked John Noakes, Peter Purvis and Valerie Singleton, now there was a threesome, not seen them in the media for a while, wonder what happened to them, probably all died of heroin or AIDS.

Bit after my time was Leslie
Is she on Sky (not that I have a telly still)

So approx 28% of the electorate voted NO
They prefer a clear overall winner in their elections and as a result won the day ??

R U AVing a larf?