The EU, Fluffy Handcuffs and the Alternative Vote #yes2av #argh2av #no2av

What's the best thing to do when you're being pelted with lies, inaccuracies and emotionally charged nonsense?

Disarming with humour is usually quite an effective tactic and a genius has come up with the perfect antidote to the No2AV Campaign's latest advertising campaign. The No2AV ad features a series of heart rending images of babies or soldiers, for example, with a caption saying "he needs a maternity unit/bulletproof vest/ etc not an alternative voting system.  The thing is that No2AV are talking complete bollocks about the cost of introducing AV which they put at £250 million because they say that costly counting machines will have to be bought. No so. They aren't needed and the vested interests within No2AV, who want to preserve power in the hands of a small elite rather than give it to voters, are cynically using vulnerable groups to promote their nonsense rather than argue the merits of the system, or indeed defend first past the post. You can see an example of the ad on the brand spanking new Total Politics website. It seems a little less overwhelming seeing it today on my laptop than it did yesterday when I saw it on my iPhone

If you've been on another planet for the last 24 hours, or aren't on Twitter or Facebook, you may not have noticed a serious of messages saying such things as "Margaret Beckett needs a pony not an alternative voting system" or my favourite "The EU needs fluffy handcuffs not an alternative voting system."  There are all manner of variations on those themes so you can find hours of amusement on the Argh to AV site. It runs on the same principle as the brilliant Daily Mail -o-matic headline generator.  I suspect some sort of award for digital campaigning will come the way of Argh to AV in the future.

With just over two months to go before polling day, I can't imagine that the bottom of the No2AV barrel has yet been scraped. Heaven knows what they'll come up with next.