When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons – I am afraid that across the world you can rely on the leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of self-preservation, and not in the interests of the electorate. ...
First-past-the-post has served this country well, and served dozens of other countries well. We would be mad to go to a great deal of trouble and expense to adopt a system that is less fair than the one we have. ...
By all means let us have a referendum – the one we were promised, on the Lisbon EU Treaty.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons – I am afraid that across the world you can rely on the leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of self-preservation, and not in the interests of the electorate. ...
First-past-the-post has served this country well, and served dozens of other countries well. We would be mad to go to a great deal of trouble and expense to adopt a system that is less fair than the one we have. ...
By all means let us have a referendum – the one we were promised, on the Lisbon EU Treaty." in the context of ""AV was a last gasp from Gordon Brown's bunker – and it's a gigantic fraud" The Telegraph (28 February 2011)
• Article on the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum which was held on 5 May 2011. The proposal for AV at the referendum was defeated." to mean that wisdom is timeless.