Strikes me that for AV to work, you need to know what each set of lying bastards are saying.

I can't say that would particularly help, since if they're lying bastards they'd say anything. (And they do.)

But basically you just need to know the people you really don't want as your MP. Which isn't too difficult in most cases. And that applies under any system - it's just that with AV you can also vote for the one you'd like to vote for without the risk of helping the one you hate sneaking in the back door.

Which is why the BNP like the present system that we are now stuck with.