a frothing half-litre of cloudy, malty Stiegl Paracelsus Zwickl on the ski-slopes in Kitzbühel

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

referendum on beer? beer drinker's guide to May 5 choice!

AV or First past the post? Not sure?
Here's a beer drinker's guide (customisable for any other tipple).

AV:
You want a pint of Hook Norton Best bitter, usually one of six on the hand pumps.
The landlord says, "sorry, mate no enough demand. It's off."
You look at the pumps. There's London Pride, Young's Special, Guinness, Greene King IPA, but if there's no beer, all the pub has to offer is Campari soda. Thank God there's a few beers on offer.
You don't fancy any of them as much as the Hooky but you want a beer and like them roughly in the order of preference above, so you try asking for London Pride. The landlord checks how many locals have been been ordering it lately, and If there's enough, it means he has some in, and you get a pint! Yeh! Result. Maybe not, though, so he goes down the list. Maybe, it the locals are real plonkers, you end up with a Guinness of a Greene King, but hey at least you got a beer.
Absolute worst case, there's no beer and you're stuck with a bloody undrinkable Campari-soda. But you had a few decent chances to get something you might like, and it's just tough. Maybe you should drink somewhere else.

FPTP:
You go into your local. There's Hook Norton on tap, and Guinness but that's all. If enough people haven't been ordering either over the past few years, it's Campari for you.
You ask for a pint of Hooky. Landlord says no. Guinness? No. So it's Campari or piss off. You piss off, thoroughly disillusioned and would never drink there again, but there isn't another decent boozer in town.
Result: total disaffection. Never go to pub again.

Translated into politics.
Final result AV: either I get what I want or most of the time, something I can at least live with.
Finals result FPTP: if I live here, it's because I like what they offer in the pub, and if I don't I'm told to piss off. Forever. Call this choice, 'coz I don't!

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