Back in my youth I was a liberal democrat and even stood once as a councillor (gaining 200 votes, or as I put it: doubling the vote). So, I used to be a strong supporter of the alternative vote, because I always felt that the “middle” was squeezed out by people who feared labour or Tories so much that they voted for the opposite party.
I’m now an agnostic on voting, in part because I don’t want to see a party like the present liberal democrats in constant power, in part because I don’t want to see the dirty little deals that our politicians get up to behind our backs.
I like my Lib Dem MP in Strathkelvin and Bearsden. But whilst being an enthusiastic champion of the causes she believes in, she is a downright pig-head-in-the-sand for causes she doesn’t believe in … and being a Liberal Democrat seems to require an absurd unscientific sympathy toward the eco-nutter cause. (E.g. an abhorrence of  any consideration at all for an upper chamber appointed by a panel of ordinary voters … perhaps because it has no involvement of politicians and turkeys don’t vote for Xmas?)
The point with FFP, is that you get what is says on the ballot. You vote labour, and they win, and you get the labour party manifesto (or at least if they don’t implement the manifesto they get taken to the cleaners at the next election), likewise the Tories. And if you don’t like either you vote for some other party, which in effect says that neither party has a full mandate for their manifesto. So, the manifesto counts, and really no party can wriggle out of its manifesto commitments except by pointing to overwhelming public dissent.
What it says in the manifesto is what the party has to do in government. But, as soon as we have AV, we inevitably get a much larger number of “middle” MPs, which makes a coalition much much more likely and therefore a government with the Liberal Democrats as a near certainty in most elections. And of course, being a coalition, they “can’t” implement what their manifesto says, because they “have to” compromise and guess which policies will get compromised?

1. Policies which the politicians didn’t want to put in their manifestos, but which the public demanded in order to vote for them (like immigration or lack of CO2 taxation)
2. Policies which are the politicians pet causes like AV, PR, a house of Lord retirement home for washed out politicians voted out of office?

The answer is obvious. Worse, once we have AV, the answer will also be obvious to parties: stick anything you like in the manifesto and then blame the coalition partner for not being able to implement them in government.

AV, is a politicians dream and an electoral nightmare.

Not that I like the current left-right divide in UK politics. This is particularly bad when e.g. you live in Scotland, and there are important local issues and e.g. what is the point voting SNP when they can never be the government of the UK? But even in the rest of the UK, it could be argued that a choice of “left, middle-left, middle-right, right” government gives a much finer choice of political “direction” and therefore provides more stability in the long run.
Indeed as we all know from the “overwhelming consensus” (70 scientists out of thousands), sometimes the small minority of political activists who run our government can effectively deny the majority any real say in politics and to put the other side, these “grubby little deals” between coalition parties could eventually allow e.g. the UKIP or SNP to finally force through their politicies which are currently being squeezed out by the Westminster “consensus”. E.g. an SNP coalition government could considerably enhance the position of Scotland in the UK finally bringing some British institutions and British spending in Scotland rather than pumping almost all the UK key spending into England (most into one small corner of the SE). The UKIP (the only UK party which actively speaks out against the global warming madness) might also be a great beneficiary of AV, thereby bringing a strong voice against the madness of eco-nuttery and other darling policies of our political elite like the EU.

So How am I going to vote?

I really can’t make up my mind. So, I was particularly inspired by my son who put my intention so well:

I’m voting No! but I’m putting yes as my second preference!!!!