PM Cameron Blasts Humphreys Over AV Ignorance

[Teddy Bear]

Besides the ignorance displayed by BBC's John Humphrys over the AV vote, this story also shows the unconcealed contempt the BBC have for the Conservative party, or any other party than Labour. They must realise that no party has the guts to kick them loose. They might be rejoicing at this fact but history has shown that eventually it will be the public that bring them back to earth. Question is, will it be the British public or an Islamic one? Either way, they got it coming, it's just a matter of how much damage they do to the society before it turns on them.

'Go back to school': The moment David Cameron blasted BBC's John Humphrys over the AV voting system

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:22 PM on 3rd May 2011
Prime Minister David Cameron told one of the BBC's most senior journalists to go 'back to school' today after accusing him of failing to understand the electoral reforms being voted on in Thursday's referendum.

Mr Cameron said it was 'worrying' that the Radio 4 Today programme's lead interviewer, John Humphrys, had given listeners incorrect information about how the alternative vote system works.

And he later took a second swipe at the broadcaster, saying it was 'staggering' that he appeared to believe that the UK's first-past-the-post system was not used anywhere else in the world.

Mr Cameron's outburst came as he was interviewed about the May 5 vote on ditching first past the post for the AV system, which involves voters ranking candidates for Westminster elections in order of preference.

Under AV, the candidate receiving the fewest votes in each round is eliminated and the second preferences of his or her supporters redistributed between those remaining until one of them has more than 50 per cent backing.

If the count goes to several rounds, this means backers of fringe parties could have their vote counted for a number of different candidates, while those supporting the eventual winner will have it counted each time for the same person.

Mr Cameron said this would result in a system where 'you start counting some people's votes more than once'.

But Mr Humphrys retorted: 'No, you don't. That simply isn't true, that you count some votes more than once.'

The Prime Minister replied: 'Yes, you do. You count all the votes, and then you start eliminating candidates and then you count people's second preferences.'

Mr Humphrys: 'And I have a second preference as well as you or anybody else and you count them again as well, so you don't count some people's votes more than others.'

Mr Cameron: 'You are completely wrong. That's not the way it works. It's complicated.'

Mr Humphrys: 'No, it isn't, it's terribly simple.'

Mr Cameron: 'You are wrong. If you vote for the Labour candidate and I vote for the Monster Raving Loony candidate and the Monster Raving Loony comes last, my second preference is then counted again.'

Mr Humphrys: 'So is mine.'

Mr Cameron: 'No, it isn't. That's where you are wrong. It is quite worrying if actually the lead broadcaster on the BBC doesn't understand the system.

'You don't understand the system you are supposed to be explaining to the public. I do think that's worrying. Back to school.'

Mr Humphrys: 'I will go back to school, and I will choose my teacher.'

Later, the two men clashed once more, this time when Mr Cameron pointed out that only three countries in the world - Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea - currently use the AV system for general elections.

The broadcaster retorted: 'As opposed to our system that is used in none other - no other major democracy.'

'Try America,' replied Mr Cameron, provoking the response from Humphrys: 'They have primaries in the United States.'

Mr Cameron went on: 'I find it staggering that the lead broadcaster in the BBC thinks our system is not used anywhere in the world.

'You have got to change your briefer. Our system is used by half the voters in the world. I'm absolutely staggered.'

A BBC News spokesman said: 'BBC News, including Today, has spelled out in great detail how AV would work and the referendum campaign has been covered extensively across our outlets.

'During a lively Today interview, David Cameron and John Humphrys disagreed over a technicality when the AV referendum was discussed.

'John was trying to reflect the point of contention between the campaigns over whether some people, in effect, have more than one vote under AV. In hindsight, he could have made this clearer.'

[Teddy Bear]

Brendan O'Neill in The Telegraph writes more about BBC bias in relation to AV in support of the Labour party. Anyone watching Young Voters' Question Time run by Richard Bacon last night would see how they use their programmes to brainwash the young.

The Today programme and AV: John Harris plays the annoying, trendy schoolteacher
By Brendan O'Neill Politics Last updated: May 4th, 2011

Did you ever have one of those irritating schoolteachers who thought he was really “with it” and kool, who would always stroll into class a couple of minutes late decked out in jeans and an un-ironed flowery shirt, and who was forever saying things like: “Look kids, I know this stuff is super-boring but it’s also really important, so let’s learn it, yeah”?

I did. And I had a cold sweat-inducing flashback to how brain-shrivelling that teaching style was as I listened to John Harris of the Guardian give a lecture about AV on the Today programme this morning. Not a lecture lecture – not an actual command from on high that all decent, liberal BBC listeners should vote Yes to AV tomorrow. No, it was something worse than that: a chummy, chatty, nod-and-wink-packed spiel about why AV is super-boring but also really important, so we should probably all vote for it, yeah?

In the topsy-turvy world of Radio 4 – where “humorous” is often a codeword for “not humorous” – Harris’s talk was presented as a hilarious A to V of AV. (Geddit?! All the letters are the same!) Bravely deciding to do nothing whatsoever to offset the frequently made accusation that the Beeb and the Guardian are these days part of the same liberal, chattering-class milieu, Harris laid into the Conservative Party for being scared of AV while describing AV supporter Ed Miliband as a “man of his word”.

I’ll wait a second while that sinks in. Yes, Ed Miliband, a man who wouldn’t know what a political principle was if he got mugged by one in an alleyway, who is only pro-AV for the most short-termist and opportunistic of reasons – because he wants to give Cameron a bloody nose – is apparently honourable and true. It’s the oddest thing said on the Today programme since Beatrix Campbell had a menopausal rant about boobs on the 40th anniversary of the Sun’s Page 3.

There was one good thing about Harris’s guide to AV, however: it provided a striking snapshot of how elitist and removed from the public the AV bandwagon is. Bemoaning the fact that many mere mortal Brits don’t even know what the letters AV stand for, far less how this voting system works, Harris adopted that trendy schoolteacher habit of asking his audience “are you still awake?” and “are you still with me?”. “53 per cent of people are in the dark” about how AV works, he said, so “let’s hope they’re listening”. His message, like that of the official Yes to AV campaign, can be summed up as follows: “Look, I know this is complicated and really weirdly technical, but it’s also a big chance for electoral change, so please pay attention you slightly thick plebs!”

The patronising tone of the generally pro-AV smart set coupled with the savage disinterest in AV shown by the majority of the public sums up the problem with the AV referendum: no one really wanted it in the first place. In contrast to the great electoral reforms of the past – from the extension of the franchise to working-class men to the right to vote for women – this referendum has not come about as a result of public agitation for reform. There was no streetfighting, no risk-taking, no mass protests in Hyde Park for the Right To Split My Vote Between Four Or Five Candidates. On the contrary, the AV referendum is a product of elite deal-making: it came about as part of Cameron and Clegg’s behind-the-scenes wrangling over how to form a semi-stable coalition government. All those pro-AV campaigners who liken themselves to the Suffragettes or to Martin Luther King – and there was a whiff of that in Harris’s thing on Today – are indulging in self-flattery and self-delusion of epic proportions. Where those historic shifts gripped the public imagination and were fuelled by mass demands for change, AV is by contrast the pet cause of a handful of professional liberal activists who snobbishly frown upon the public for being overly “tribalistic” in their old-fashioned political allegiances.

So there’s a good reason why many ordinary Brits are “in the dark” about AV: it’s because they choose to be there. They’re not interested in AV. They never asked for it and many of them don’t want it. No amount of trendy hectoring by opinion-formers will convince the public that tomorrow’s referendum is our generation’s “Suffragette moment”.

[Teddy Bear]

It's a No: Whopping two thirds reject AV in fresh embarrassment for Lib Dems

It gives me some hope and consolation to see that the British public managed to resist the 'Ministry of Thought' efforts to get them to vote yes on AV.

;D Woo Hoo