Constitution & administration

Politicians already promise what they can't deliver to win the support of enough voters to get past the post. Under AV, they'd have to promise even more to even more groups, to get their second-preference votes, meaning even more broken promises or even more expensive government. Once they were in, they would be under no more pressure to deliver than before. When the LibDems say that AV will make MPs work harder for more people, what they mean is that it will make candidates lie harder to more people. That may not bother the LibDems, but it bothers me.

The Conservative Party and the Lib Dems speak about increasing the devolution of responsibilities to local authorities (LAs) or county authorities, but do they really mean it?

It's quite easy to propose an increase in the areas where LAs provide services, but if they don't also propose collecting a large proportion of the funds required for providing their services locally, councillors will tend to make decisions that win them votes on the basis of ignoring the industrial interests of an area. There are few votes given by Directors and Shareholders.