Scottish Election 2011: Yes to AV will make MPs work, voters told

Politicians getting 'jobs for life in safe seats' will stop if voters give the green light to the alternative vote (AV) in next month's referendum on the electoral system, the former director general of the BBC said yesterday.

"In constituency after constituency, what matters is not getting the electorate to support you but getting the party to nominate you," said Greg Dyke, who resigned from the BBC in 2004 and is now chair of the British Film Institute.

At the national launch of the Yes to AV campaign in London, he added: "Once nominated you've got a job for life in seat after seat which is why we've got rather average politicians. AV will begin to change that."

"Politicians are going to have to work harder to get our support and work harder to keep it. You don't get jobs for life anywhere else in Britain today, so why should you in politics?"

He was speaking on an intentionally politician-free platform with comedian Eddie Izzard, writer Rowan Davis, retired athlete and motivational speaker Kriss Akabusi, war correspondent and former MP Martin Bell and ethical fashion designer Amisha Ghadiali.

Organisers said more than 100 campaign events had been arranged across the country, with banner drops in 60 cities.

Dyke said those opposing the campaign were "old hack politicians" and had become "complacent" about their jobs". Citing opposition to the proposed changes from Conservative and Labour MPs, he said: "It's time for the politicians to keep quiet. This is not about them - it's about us. They are our servants, it's not the other way round," he added.

Izzard, the comedian and Labour supporter, said the Yes to AV campaign is "pushing for civilisation".

The proposed system, to be voted on in a referendum on 5 May, would see voters rank candidates in order of preference, with poorly performing candidates seeing their votes distributed to others until one candidate reaches 50 per cent.

Izzard said the model is "as simple as one-two-three" and would end tactical voting.

"People do want more choice. Politics is not black and white and grey. It's multicoloured. This is the first time we've been given the chance to choose. If we don't take this chance on 5 May we won't get another chance for 100 years," he said.

Bell, who as an independent candidate in 1997 on a 'sleaze-busting' platform ousted Conservative MP Neil Hamilton, said the campaign was a "movement against the political classes".

"We cannot have our MPs being elected by a minority of their constituents and then still try preaching about democracy to the rest of the world. Let's first put our own house in order."

Akabusi, a Conservative voter and former Olympic sprinter, responded to claims by the No campaign that fringe parties would benefit from the proposed reforms. "Never in a month of Sundays would the BNP get in," he said. "However, if, in a fair and democratic election, 50 per cent of the people voted for the BNP, I'd be proud to be in that country. Because democracy also has to have unpalatables. You can't just have it the way you want it."

Responding to yesterday's campaign launch, a spokesman for opposition group No to AV said: "This event is a glossy veneer to cover the Yes campaign's politicians' launch on Tuesday, where they were unable to get Ed Miliband to share a stage with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg - the man responsible for this expensive and unwanted referendum.

"At a time when people are seeing their pay frozen and the cost of living rising, why should they listen to a bunch of celebrities who are backing a plan to spend 250 million scrapping our fair voting system for one that gives some people more votes than others?"