Punch and Judy turn out for referendum debate

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Last night saw a hefty win for the government on a referendum in 2011 on adopting an alternative vote system to elect our MPs.

The result will be spun by Downing Street as evidence of an enthusiastically reforming Labour Party versus a Conservative Party terrified of change.

However, voters tuned in to watch the debate on the BBC Parliament Channel last night (the viewing figures won't be troubling the BARB number-crunchers) will have been thoroughly unimpressed by what they saw.

On one side of the chamber a government minister who looked like he would rather be anywhere else, on the other a Conservative frontbencher who summoned a series of usual suspects from the backbenches to do much of his dirty work.

There was a great deal of the all too familiar name-calling and posturing.

Punch and Judy were out in force.

Shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve was effective in his attacks on a furious-looking Jack Straw, but in defence of the justice secretary, who at times texted on his phone like a truculent teenager and at others slouched like a man utterly bored of the whole row, he had already endured a gruelling week.

With Monday's diary block-booked for another appearance before the Chilcott Inquiry and then an evening with the Parliamentary Labour Party, Tuesday's vote was the last thing he would have wanted.

But neither can claim to have had the finest hour at the Despatch Box - and nor can the MPs all around them.

Grieve said he was sorry to see Straw "obliged to be associated with this guff," but the attacks on the government amendment weren’t launched solely from the opposition benches.

Tom Harris, Frank Field, and Lynne Jones were among those Labour MPs who lodged their protest and yet, when it came to the vote, they weren't found to be passing through the No lobby.

Little wonder then that government whips had seemed relatively calm throughout the day - though not quite calm enough to give big Cabinet beasts like the brothers Miliband or home secretary Alan Johnson the evening off.

In the event the government won the day by 365 to 187.

One Labour MP told me that despite being firmly against AV there was no point voting No: the bill will be thrown out by the Upper House anyway, so what was the point in stirring up trouble with the whips?

Another said they voted for AV for no particular reason. Inspiring stuff.

Those prepared to voice concerns, such as Harris and Field, abstained, leaving just three Labour MPs to file through the No lobby.

Field praised the government for opening up the debate on electoral reform, but the fact that it is so late in the day – and so out of the blue – won’t be lost on any voter with a passing interest.

The debate is going nowhere - and MPs knew it.

With time running out on this Parliament the bill still has to go through the Lords, while the chances of a referendum being held under a Tory government are nil.

It's gesture politics, but a gesture of what?

When Labour had big majorities to play with the issue was kept firmly off limits.

It looks, as the Lib Dems have said, like a deathbed conversion.

And even though the debate has begun, the voting of all three parties hardly screams principled politics.

The huge bulk of Labour MPs who either spoke out against AV or were known to be against it - some pundits had predicted a 50-strong rebellion - nevertheless chose not to underline their belief by voting against it.

The Lib Dems made a song and dance about their opposition to the AV shift but were nevertheless always going to back a measure that would have given them, by recent estimates, nine more seats at the last general election, while the Tories voted as one against the measure, a show of unity designed to mark out the government's dubious motives.

Tactically this might make good sense for the prime minister.

The Tories have ended up looking change-wary, while the Lib Dems have the olive-branch of a referendum should they find themselves holding the power cards in the election outcome of a hung Parliament.

But the visual spectacle of last night’s angry debate and the achingly predictable outcome of the vote that followed, hardly presented a Parliament with a passion to reconnect with the electorate and inspire a disengaged populace to switch on to politics.

The arguments, on both sides of the chamber, failed to stack up. Perhaps they would have had a bit more cerdibility a few years ago.

Sam Macrory is features editor of The House Magazine.