The last referendum took place when I was unable to stand or talk and spent most of the day asleep or sitting in my own shit. I just hope that Britain has another shot at reform before I end up the same way again, though I feel that the powers that be will treat the rejection of AV as synonymous with approval for keeping it exactly as it is now. Democracy has spoken and it will deliberately be misheard.
Maybe Obnoxio had the right idea last year when he decided to vote for the most insane and incompetent party - Labour - with the idea that they'd bugger things up even more while the Tories would rip themselves to bits over another loss. Maybe things have got so broken that you just can't use the system to fix itself anymore and even baby steps in the right direction are too much. Maybe the only thing left to do is wait for it the country to self-destruct and then sweep up the mess and start again. And if that's so then maybe the kindest thing to do would be to help it along. The awful news there is that everything will have to get much worse before it can get better, but is there a realistic chance of anything else happening?
What the hell - AV was never going to be enough and hoping it'd be the start of a chain of reforms was always a hell of a long shot anyway. At least we'll probably have some entertainment from watching the ilLiberal Dimotwats fall on each other.
UPDATE - while this is being reported as an overwhelming No to AV I see that less than 19 million, plus of course those like Captain Ranty and Leg-iron who've had some fun creatively spoiling their ballots, have actually exercised themselves to vote one way or the other. The truth is that by an overwhelming margin, and as other bloggers suggested, Britain has voted Meh to AV.
I can't decide whether the fact that voting Meh at every election is the norm for millions of people is part of the problem or whether it's something we should be grateful for.