From: "Paul Davies"
Date: Fri, October 13, 2006 11:25
To: watsont@parliament.uk

Damn blog won't let me respond, so this is what I tried to leave as a comment on this post:

Shucks. Nice to know that your parliament emails are well screened...

If you've done it to death, perhaps you'd be so kind as to link to somewhere where you've done it already, or copy and paste from an old speech or something.

So long as it sticks to the rules as outlined in the original challenge, i.e. attacking STV, not crazy-ass closed-list PR or other such nonsense, that'd do fine.

There's NO decent defence of FPTP against STV anywhere (not that I've seen anyway). Surely your side deserves better than that?

Paul Davies
http://www.makemyvotecount.org.uk/blog

From: "Tom Watson"
Date: Fri, October 13, 2006 11:59
To: "Paul Davies"

Hi Paul,

The server I use is under spam attack so they've closed down the comments until they mend it.

Now - your rules! I think I'm allowed to define my own reasons for not liking PR. But honestly, I think you should find someone else to take up your challenge.

Best wishes,

Tom

From: "Paul Davies"
Date: Fri, October 13, 2006 12:13
To: "Tom Watson"

You just seemed like the obvious man, for reasons mentioned here.

No one else seems to be any good at it. They keep saying silly things about Israel and Italy. Which are all completely irrelevant.

I can tell you're reluctant. Is this because you know arguing against STV (which is what most electoral reformers want to see) is so much harder than arguing against closed lists? But as you seem fairly certain FPTP is the best anyway, I doubt you'd find it that much more difficult.

And if you really have done it to death, you've probably got something lying around that you can use as is.

You make my rules sound unfair. Which they're not. They shouldn't be needed at all, but because of fools like Jack Straw, they're necessary to protect the civility of the discourse and make sure the FPTP defender doesn't end up making a fool of themselves in public.

Hopefully you read the whole challenge, which makes everything clear and simple, methinks.

As I said before, I know defending the status quo isn't a major issue, but your side does at least deserve an attempt at a sensible defence, (although I'll admit treating the whole issue as a bit of a joke with constantly risible replies is quite cunning).

I've only got five days left here, so I will go away eventually, but I am genuinely keen to see somewhere make your arguments properly. I even gave you a few to start with in the original post...

From: "Tom Watson"
Date: Fri, October 13, 2006 12:17
To: "Paul Davies"

No honestly Paul, it really is that I have done it to death. There was a point in my life when I lived and breathed electoral systems. If you start me off I can't stop. And you really don't want me to start again. I'd bore for England. Try other MPs.

Tom

From: "Paul Davies"
Date: Fri, October 13, 2006 12:23
To: "Tom Watson"

Meh, I'll let you off. But one last time: if you've done it to death, have you anything on file?

He has decided not to respond any further

I realise that it was a bit generous to leave it there, and that given the brush-off content and the ignorance of my question of where all his arguments that he's done to death might be located, he was probably deserving of a few more nagging emails. But in my opinion there was no way he was actually going to cave in, and making him look daft for the hell of it didn't seem worth the effort.

At least I got something out of him, I suppose. Maybe he was just happy to talk about something that didn't involve Sion Simon.