经济学人下载:英国剧变,英国正在宪法剧变的边缘

The Tories have their prize already: a plan to redraw constituencies has passed into law, and boundary commissioners have been told to complete their work by October 2013. Critics of the whole process (notably MPs likely to lose safe seats) predict a future of “homogenised” constituencies ignoring historic community boundaries, weakening the bonds between MPs and voters. Enthusiasts say today’s disparities are simply anti-democratic: the average English constituency contains nearly 72,000 voters, whereas the average Welsh seat holds 56,500, and Scottish and Northern Irish ones lie somewhere in between.

托利党已得到了甜头：选区重新划分的计划已获通过颁为法律，边界委员会也将按要求在2013年10月前完成工作。批评整个过程（尤其是国会议员很可能失去安全席位）的评论家预言未来的所有选区将是“平均分布的”，不顾历史的社区边界，不断消弱国会议员和投票人之间的联系。热情的支持者表示当下的不公显然是反民主的：英格兰选区平均包含近7.2万选民而威尔士选区包含5.65万选民，苏格兰和北爱尔兰的数值介于两者之间。

Taking the strain承受压力
The referendum on whether to adopt AV has strained the coalition between the Conservatives and their Lib Dem partners as never before (the Labour Party is divided on the issue). Though the fight is presented in terms of democratic high principle, venom has been introduced because naked interests are at stake. The ideological meeting of minds between Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg—a liberal conservative working with a conservative liberal, in the happy phrase-making of Downing Street insiders—has been chilled by the realisation that the AV fight is a zero-sum game for the pair. A No vote would leave Mr Clegg having to explain to his party just what they gain from coalition with the Tories. Meanwhile, many Conservatives fear that a Yes vote might bar their party from ever winning a working majority again.

就是否采用AV的公投使得共组联合政府的保守党和自民党的关系前所未有的紧张（工党在该问题上从在分歧）。尽管目前是就民主原则争论不休，双方还是因为利益受到威胁而恶语相加。原本卡梅隆先生和克莱格先生交流思想的理想会面——唐宁街内部人士将其戏称为一位自由的保守党与一位保守的自由党的合作——在意识到AV的争夺会是一场零和博弈的时候气氛骤降。若AV不得通过，克莱格先生则不得不向他的党派解释他们到底从和托利党共组联合政府中得到了什么好处。同时，很多保守党担心AV通过后他们的政党很可能永远都无法赢得大多数支持。

For both Clegg and Cameron, the AV fight is a zero-sum game
不论是对克莱格还是卡梅隆，AV争夺都是一场零和博弈。

Many of the mud-slinging claims of both camps, though, fall apart under scrutiny. Modelling data from previous elections, the New Economics Foundation, a think-tank, suggests that AV would merely trim the number of safe seats, so that 16% rather than 13% would change hands at a typical election. For all the Yes camp’s talk of fairness, the 1998 Jenkins commission on electoral reform concluded that, in a landslide election, AV exaggerates the swing to the winning party: in 1997, Labour would have won 452 seats rather than 419. Nor would AV eliminate tactical voting. AV allows supporters of small or fringe parties to cast a first-preference vote for their favoured candidate, confident that their second preference will probably be in play and hence a matter for tactics.

两个阵营间相互的恶意诽谤，在调查之后都大都瓦解。新经济基金会（New Economics Foundation，智库）表示，之前选举的数模和数据显示AV只会消减安全席位，因此有16%而非13%的席位在选举后会易手。对于赞成方阵营所说的公正，1998年詹金斯委员会在选举改革上总结到，对于有着压倒性胜利的选举，AV会扩大获胜一方的势力范围：1997年，工党因此只获得419个席位而不是452个。AV也不会消除策略性投票。AV允许小型边缘政党的支持者将他们最喜欢的候选人列为首选，但是有信心这些人的次选很可能会获胜，以此作为战略。

That does not mean fringe parties are easily elected under AV, as some No campaigners claim. Extremists are unlikely to pick up enough lower-order preferences from other rivals to get over the 50% line. But AV can result in large hauls of first-preference votes for minor parties. One plausible effect of moving to AV in Britain would be hefty first-preference votes for small parties such as the anti-European United Kingdom Independence Party, but without a corresponding haul of Westminster seats. Demands to move from AV to a full PR system would surely follow.

反对者表示这不意味着采用AV后边缘政党就很易获胜。极端主义者很难从喜好排在后位的竞争对手那里获得超过半数的选票。但AV很可能导致小党派成为选民首选。英国采取AV似乎会带来的好处就是大量的首选票投给诸如反泛欧英国独立党的小党派，但在议会的席位并不会因此巨变。从AV改革为完全的PR的呼声将接踵而至。