Tuesday 29 January 2013

Boundary Reform




The Conservatives lost a vote on boundary reforms in the commons today that means its all over until 2018 really. The Lib Dems abandoned them and no one else would help.

It serves as a good example of when self interest ruins everything. The Tories had the high ground wanting to reduce the number of MP's by 50 and change the constituency boundaries to even them out.

The 50 seat reduction has many origins as an idea including reducing the heavy number of Scots MP's now that they have a Parliament of their own.

Boundaries are changed roughly every 10 years so as to keep pace with population shifts. The current boundaries benefit labour by quite a bit and they did not institute change in the last years of the Brown/Blair era for obvious party political reasons.

The Tories are obviously desperate to redress the balance so as to assist them by the next election.

The Lib Dems didn't back the Tories because the reform would not have helped them and officially as revenge for the failure of Lords reform.

There are many other factors involved in the mess but it all reflects very poorly on politicians and the boundaries problem remains.

Daft.

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