AV rivals target Londoners as fight for votes enters final day

Millions of Londoners were today targeted as never before as the historic referendum on the Alternative Vote entered its final day of campaigning.

Hundreds of activists handed out leaflets at train and Tube stations this morning and again this afternoon, and the No campaign even produced a special Oyster card holder emblazoned with an anti-AV slogan.

Travellers in the capital form the biggest concentration of potential voters in the country and, unlike general elections, where canvassing is targeted at marginal seats, every vote is in equal demand.

About 2.5 million people pass through Tube and railway stations each day.

In a frantic final 24 hours, the Yes campaign claimed to have some 2,000 volunteers operating from 50 hubs and four call centres to urge potential supporters to vote when the polling stations open across the country at 7am tomorrow.

The No camp was staging 50 leafleting events in London, particularly at major stations, and also dispatched its battle bus to tour the South-East from Tunbridge Wells to Westminster.

With some 5.7 million voters in London, the capital is viewed as crucial to the referendum outcome.

Leading campaigners from both sides were making their final appeals for people to defy predictions of a low turnout.

Comedian Eddie Izzard, fronting the Yes pitch, told the Standard: "I have been in every corner of the UK and there is a really good feeling.

"I hope all Londoners will make sure their voices are heard. Don't wake up this weekend with the same old politics." Olympic rower James Cracknell, backing the No campaign, said: "AV is like being the first to cross the line, only to find that the team which came third has won."

An opinion poll today by ComRes in the Independent claimed that the No campaign looked home and dry, with 66 per cent of the vote to the Yes campaign's 34.

A survey of 100 MPs by YouGovStone found three quarters wanted to keep the traditional "first past the post" system. Only nine per cent backed AV.

The decision to hold a referendum was agreed in negotiations last May to form the Coalition.

After months of campaigning, tensions were high within the Tory Lib- Dem Coalition over the issue. Energy Secretary Chris Huhne caused a row inside Cabinet yesterday by challenging David Cameron to defend controversial No tactics.

He was slapped down for "sub Jeremy Paxman" conduct by George Osborne.

Yes campaign officials have distanced themselves from Mr Huhne. "Nothing Chris Huhne has done in the last few weeks was authorised by us or useful to us," said one.

However, the "nasty" posters that Mr Huhne criticised the Conservatives over were, in fact, created by a leading Labour figure.

Dan Hodges, of the Labour Uncut website, had the idea that AV would mean less money for sick babies.

Mr Huhne confronted Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne in Cabinet with copies of the poster, showing a crying baby.