A common sense way to make the majority happy #yes2av #no2av

We need to see a lot more of Dan Snow in the future.  He's good.

What's your magic number? #yes2av #no2av

No, I don't mean the number of people you've been intimate with, although if you want to tell me that, I will nod politely and pretend that I don't feel really awkward.

What I mean is the number of times your vote has actually counted in a Westminster election.

I have now voted in 6 Westminster elections, over 24 years. It should have been 7, but, well, I kind of missed out on 1997 cos I was too busy knocking up for Tony Rogers in Chesterfield that I never got the chance to make the 20 mile journey home to vote. Not that my Liberal Democrat vote would have meant anything in Sherwood.

In fact, only once in that kicking the backside of quarter of a century has my vote counted.

A quarter of a century is a long time to go without having any real say in the democratic process at all.

I remember a posting by the lovely Mr Dr Chocaholic last year where he pointed out that half the seats in England, and almost that in most of the rest of the UK, hadn't changed hands in his lifetime. He pointed out 29% which hadn't changed hands since 1945. He points out the dangers of such a system - that MPs in those seats are basically not accountable to their public because it's very difficult to remove them under First Past the Post.

So if you are under 40, nearly half the seats in the country have never changed hands since you were born. That doesn’t look like a system which is holding MPs to account for their behaviour.

In Eddie Izzard's latest video for the Yes to Fairer Votes Campaign, he points out that the last election result was determined by just over 1.6% of the electorate - the rest of us might as well not have bothered. It can't be right that MPs can be returned for safe seat knowing that their place in Parliament is theirs until they decide that they don't want it any more. That's not how a democracy should work.



AV means that every MP will have to have 50% of the vote. That has to be a good thing, because it means they will have to appeal to more people in their constituency, not just their own core supporters. They will have to break out of their ivory towers and talk to people.

And each person's vote will have more of a chance of counting, giving them more of a say in the democratic process.

So, let me know your magic number - how many times has your vote counted elected somebody?

Nick Clegg dances for AV #yes2AV

This hilarious video by MJHibbet, available here on You Tube is worth watching for the animated Nick Clegg dancing alone, but it has some very down to earth reasons to vote Yes in the AV Referendum next week.

AV - A Historical Perspective #yes2AV

The delightful Dan Snow cuts through the crap that's flying about  about AV - and tells us that this is a constitutional tweak we can happily embrace - a more modern, fairer and sophisticated way of electing our MPs.  I like also his contrast between people saying we're too stupid to count to 3 and expecting us to fill in extremely complex official forms.

Hot off the press: the Yes to Fairer Votes broadcast - make them work for our votes #yes2av

The ink is barely dry on the Yes Campaign's first broadcast which has just been shown on BBC2.

Subtle it ain't by any stretch of the imagination. None of the politicians I know and love are like those portrayed in the broadcast, but we've seen so much evidence of MPs who take their area and their constituents for granted because, no matter what they do, or don't do, they'll get re-elected anyway under our travesty of an electoral system.

The broadcast also makes the point - but the campaign needs to keep saying this louder and louder - that parties use AV to elect their leaders because it's fairer, yet they'll deny it to ordinary voters because it would mean giving up power.

The right to a vote that actually counts - Eddie Izzard et al at Yes Campaign launch #yes2av

Here's some video from last week's launch of the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign. I kind of like  the fact that it doesn't have any politicians (ok, Martin Bell was an MP, but he's more national treasure than hack) and we hear from real people as well as celebs.

The thing that chimed with me most was the woman saying that she wanted the right to a vote that actually counts. Enjoy!

Flippin' Eck - ways of celebrating Pancake Day

It's not really Pancake Day - we should I suppose call it by its proper name, Shrove Tuesday.

I am a bit over-excited tonight, having discovered that I am a tiny bit awesome in the pancake making department. Enough previous attempts have ended in disaster to convince me that I simply can't make pancakes but, at the suggestion of my husband, I used a different pan tonight and they turned out really well.

We had savoury ones with a chicken, white wine and tarragon sauce and sweet ones with maple syrup and ice cream. I am now so pleased that I have found my pancake making mo-jo that I am determined to make Crepes Suzette on Saturday. I'll let Bob do the setting on fire bit, though. There might not be enough luck in the world for me to manage it without burning the house down.

So that's us. I was thrilled to see Stephen again at the weekend. Since he moved back to Northern Ireland, he's gone from geek into purple clad, fairer votes advocating geek. And now, today, he's transformed into pancake flipping purple clad fairer votes advocating geek.

Take a look at this. I discreetly flipped mine with a palette knife. This is something else. What a show off!