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June 27, 2006
Also sprach Herr Cameron
Thanks to Murky in the comments, I was alerted to a little bon mot from David Cameron on the Today programme yesterday morning.
Quoth Davey: "Your vote should have the same value, as it were, wherever you are in the country"
If you're a fan of David's calm, soothing tones, you can hear him say it in fancy Internet audio from here. It's the 8.10 link, and the choice quote are the last words spoken. Scan to about 15 mins 20 secs to listen, rather than waiting through all the gunk about human rights beforehand.
It is so proposterously duplicitous that I feel like writing to him again. But last time he blithely ignored my masterpiece of educative drivel, so I'm not sure I'll bother. Ah, maybe just a little one...
UPDATE: Email sent. See below. (And once again, personal correspondence, not the words of MVC, ERS, anyone else)
Dear Mr Cameron/Mr Beal/Mr Otherminion
Thank you for your kind fob off to my last email. It's always nice to have expectations fulfilled exactly.
Anyway, I won't trouble you with another long piece of political aid, I imagine you've got plenty to get through, but I am moved to one more email of educative purpose.
On the Today programme on Monday, Mr Cameron displayed either a startling lack of knowledge of what he was talking about, or a level of duplicity that even Mr Blair would have been proud of. Quoth Mr Cameron: "Your vote should have the same value, as it were, wherever you are in the country".
Lovely sentiment, and I might've taken him seriously were he not relating this to all constituencies being the same size. Given the far more important issues of under-registration, differential turnout and inefficient vote distribution, the discrepancies in constituency sizes is almost irrelevant. To illustrate this point, print out the two pretty graphs attached and compare them. Only those with the most severe political jaundice can spot any sort of correlation.
Now you are smarter. Don't you feel better for it?
All the best,
Paul Davies
Posted by pauldavies on June 27, 2006
Comments
Also sprach Cameron? I'm disappointed that on the audio clip I didn't hear a bit of Richard Struass!
Posted by: Nigel Baldwin at June 27, 2006 12:00 PM
For that you have to download it, put in on record and play it backwards.
Posted by: Paul Davies at June 27, 2006 01:41 PM
We're democrats and believe in free speech, but we're also committed to civil and rational debate. We reserve the right to delete material posted to our site, but we hope and expect to exercise this right rarely if at all.
