Not a black day, by a long chalk.
AV would have resulted in far MORE tactical voting than FPTP : Being bland and unobjectionable would result in more 2nd, 3rd, 4th round votes for someone than someone willing to make/stating taking risks/unpopular manifestos.
How else did Ed Miliband beat his brother to leadership of the Traitor Party? ;)

The most compelling argument in favour of AV is that no MP could be elected without the support of 50 per cent of his or her constituency.
Safe seats would pretty much still be safe seats - so that argument is specious at worst, disingenuous at best.
Not by 1st "round" votes, but by equal-weight! 2nd, 3rd, 4th or later! rounds votes....One person, many votes...if their "first" choice doesn't win outright. Those voters whose first choice wins, only get ONE vote. What's so "fair" about that?? not a lot.

It all depends upon what you mean by "support". Yes, a first preference vote is a clear enough endorsement. But a second preference? That translates into: "I guess I wouldn't be too upset if this candidate won - though I'm not sure about his hair." A third preference is a grudging: "He'll do, just about - well, barely, in truth." And fourth, fifth, sixth? lol.
Yes, you don't HAVE to vote for more than one person, but the option is still there, and those that use it DO get more of a say than those who don't, or whose 1st choice "wins". It's still not a democratic system.
The consequence – in Australia, at least – has been the emergence of party voting cards, in which your chosen party asks/instructs you to list your voting preferences in a particular order, to maximise its chances in that constituency. Sound fairer than "Most votes win", á la First Past The Post?
By giving second, third and fourth preferences the same weight as first choices as the candidates are winnowed down, it opens the door to even greater distortions of the electorate’s wishes, and far less representative government. First Past The Post isn’t perfect, by any means - but claiming that AV is any fairer is an argument that just doesn’t wash.

If it had been in place since the end of the Seventies, British politics - and the country itself - would have been far bleaker in the past 30 years than it has been.
In that time, AV would have boosted the Lib-Dems because they would so often have been the second choice of both Tory and Labour voters, enabling them to keep on insisting on a major role in coalition governments for themselves. What? AV would increase the number of coalitions, rather than reduce them?? Surely not! :o

AV is a system that would dissuade clarity, conviction and boldness, and reward vagueness, evasion and slippery ambiguity.
Clegg called it a "Miserable little compromise", and he was not far wrong - but it WOULD allow his party more votes/seats, which is why they're pushing for it. Half of Labour support it because they'd end up with more Tory seats...most of the time.

Partisan politics on the increase, FTL!

Depends on where in Europe you are.

From my perspective most of the democracies are absurd 2 Party Monarchies and not actual democracies. (And yes, even in Germany)

If you can only choose (without devaluing your vote) between 2 evils you don't agree with its not a democracy that caters to the majority interests of the population, rather its a cesspool of ideas where you agree with some and disagree with most and still be forced to vote it (or not vote at all)

A real democracy would allow for any opinion and position to have an electoral reflection in the parties represented. What we have now in most countries is 2 King-Maker parties slandering each other for voters. Hence me calling them Monarchies. The people who are actually in power are not the ones you elect but power shuffles done by the parties themselves.

This applies to most democracies sadly. The UK vote system change would not have fixed ANY of the major flaws either.

A proper system would have you vote on policy, and not on parties.

This isn't a failing of democracy it's a failing of voters. No system will ever be able to dodge basic human deficiency, it's impossible. At least democracy gives politically active people a chance to make a difference and influence voters. Communism, monarchies, dictatorships, fascism, etc.... none of these can say the same. In those systems human deficiency rules unchecked at the top.

Ha... pure majority rule is your answer? Then no minority groups would be represented at all.

Hahaha... I am assuming you're being funny since that is exactly what we have. Good one.

Ours works. How does it not work? If the same bullshit people get elected every 2 years its because people vote them in. If "enough percentage of people" wanted to "ditch" the current people in charge as you said then it would happen no later than two years after the fact.

The fact of the matter is people don't care, they think things are fine enough to not bother getting involved. If you think things should change then it's a failing of people, not democracy, that they have not.

Well, that would be pretty chaotic.

The point is we can have a complete revolution every 2 years. We could vote Tom Hanks president next year if we wanted to. The fact that a majority of people vote for the same old parties and the same old corrupt assholes is a failing of people, not democracy.

But voting is a kind of rating your leaders. You can do it every two years (6 months would be total chaos).

Why?

Don't just say things, explain them.

Voting (election) is a kind of universal and official poll. (as most polls are usually private and based on limited number of people).

I hope now it's more understandable.

Election = poll

Not really, I'd like to have your system here, and I'd call it an improvement.

It's a shame the newspapers couldn't let people make their own minds up. They were so unbelievably one-sided in favour of keeping the existing system people didn't get a balanced view. Ditto with demonising the Labour party and now Nick Clegg. The country is controlled by the whims of the few in control of the media. Their bias views are presented as truth and it seems the majority of people don't realise newspapers are as much fiction as a novel.

I have experience with being misrepresented. They took my name and a photo and added some lies. Completely changing my reason for being there, which they didn't ask so made up.

All Politicians, no matter what ideals they represent, are in the business for one reason only. To get out of it what they can.

Man is by nature a selfish beast. All systems of governance are doomed to ultimate failure because of this very fact.

AV versus FPTP? - Doesn't matter - the same old corrupt assholes will find a way to get elected. Every month another politician will be found out with his or her snout in the trough, swindling his or her way to a bigger house, job for relatives, moving up that political ladder. To get to the top, you just have be better at hiding the bad shit than the other one, or manipulating the media.

Deeply cynical ? yeah, definitely.

Wrong - Minority groups can be included by including their policies in a vote system. But its reality that the minority is the minority and so has only little to say. Needless to say that law should make clear that no "derogatory" policies or racist policies are allowed. And should this become apparent post-implementation then those affected should have ability for legal recourse against a policy.

Instead of people you vote for specific policies. Government then only exists to implement them.

I am not sure how well this would work, as the human flaw will be there as long as we don't have a government AI. But it would be a lot better than voting for the 2 parties that don't represent neither you, nor any minority.

This is a very good and important point. The newspapers tend to be able to shift the mindset of the ignorant masses who'd rather take on other people's ideas and pass them off as their own. It's purely repetition of the same subject until it's stuck in the readers mind.

I never understood the whole issue with Gordon Brown for instance; one minute he was the Knight in Shining Armour come to save us from the Tyrannical and warmongering leadership of Tony Blair..... then he was the incompetent bumbling fool who couldn't do a thing right.
The thing is he wasn't all that bad and his own party seemed to enjoy using him as a scapegoat; one of the issues seemed to be he wasn't dishonest enough (funny how there was nothing in the expenses scandal against him and had spoken out vocally against corruption prior to becoming Prime Minister.) I'm not saying I support him because that would mean supporting his party, but I do feel sorry for him on some levels.