Vince plays the Ann Widdecombe card on AV

With several weeks to go before the AV referendum the arguments are starting to get slightly repetitive. But Vince Cable has tried a different slant on the debate during this morning’s joint press conference with Ed Miliband.

Instead of citing other countries with AV (Fiji, Australia, Papua New Guinea) he chose the – not entirely comparable – example of Strictly Come Dancing.

“What would happen if Strictly Come Dancing were decided on the basis of first-past-the-post, which it could be? It would all be resolved after the first week and Ann Widdecombe would be the undisputed choice as the best dancer in Britain…So, of course, the public there, and in many other ways, do understand run-offs, they do understand the basic principle of the alternative vote.”

Westminster blog

on the UK political scene

About this blog Blog guide
Jim Pickard and Kiran Stacey, FT Westminster correspondents, share the latest news and analysis on the UK's political scene.

Follow the latest news on the UK politics and policy.

To comment, please register for free with FT.com and read our policy on submitting comments.

All posts are published in UK time.

Contact the Westminster blog team: Jim Pickard, Kiran Stacey, Nicholas Timmins, Elizabeth Rigby and Helen Warrell.

The illustrations of Jim and Kiran are by Nick Hardcastle.

See the full list of FT blogs.

The authors

Jim Pickard joined the lobby team in January 2008. He has been at the Financial Times since 1999 as a regional correspondent, assistant UK news editor and property correspondent.

Kiran Stacey is an FT political correspondent, having joined the lobby in 2011. He started at the FT as a graduate trainee in 2008, working on desks including UK companies and US equity markets before taking over the FT's Energy Source blog.

Contributors

Elizabeth Rigby, the FT's chief political correspondent, joined the lobby team in September 2010. Elizabeth has worked at the FT for more than a decade and was most recently its consumer industries editor.

Helen Warrell is the FT's UK reporter, covering home affairs, crime and policing. She joined the FT in 2008 and has spent time as a reporter in the Brussels bureau and more recently, editing the paper's Asia coverage on the world news desk.

Archive

« Mar May »April 2011
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930