Reid: Lib Dems seeking ‘tactical party advantage’
Former Labour home secretary Lord Reid joined David Cameron to support the campaign against the alternative vote:
“This is a positive campaign. It is defending the right of one person, one vote – a system that has been the cornerstone of our democracy for generations. That is the British way, it is the fairest way and it is the best way.
“It would not only be wrong, it would be an outrage to try to secure a change to the electoral system for tactical party advantage.
“But there is a growing and well-founded suspicion that is at least partly the aims of the ‘yes’ campaign, and I include in that the leadership of the Lib Dems – not a change in the public interest, but a change, to some extent at least, based on narrow self-interest.
“A question as important as this should never be about face-saving or self-interest or advantage for parties or personalities. Of course, every system has winners and losers. That is the nature of elections. The answer for the losing parties is to work harder to win more votes – not to demand that their voters get more votes, more bites of the cherry, than anyone else. Not to introduce a system that tries to change losers into winners.”
