Well, I've seen some cynical political manoeuvres, but this one takes the biscuit. Welsh Labour leader and First Minister Carwyn Jones has declared his support for a Yes vote in the forthcoming AV referendum, and has also innocently suggested that AV would be a rather good electoral system for the Welsh Assembly. Which is just about the only way a Labour politician could possibly hope to call for the scrapping of proportional representation and its replacement with a permanent artificial Labour majority without looking breathtakingly power-crazed. Mr Jones poses what he describes as an "important" question (presumably while struggling manfully to stifle his guffaws) -
"if this change is good enough to elect Members of the House of Commons, then surely it’s good enough to elect Members of the Welsh Assembly too?"
On the million-to-one chance that was a serious question, I'll spell out the bleedin' obvious for Carwyn - the bulk of Yes supporters categorically do not think AV is "good enough" to elect MPs. If they were offered a system like the one which elects the Welsh Assembly, they'd bite your hand off. In the meantime, they're simply making a rational choice for the better of the two rubbish majoritarian systems on offer in this referendum.
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