If there is anyone who still doubts that Cameroonism has hit the skids, if there is anyone who still believes that there is still a chance for Conservative modernisation to revive itself in this parliament, then they should pick up a copy of the Financial Times. The revelation that the Tories are considering offering state funding in order to persuade the Liberal Democrats to vote for boundary changes shows how far they’ve sunk: to the level of a grizzled incumbent in a failed state, offering taxpayers’ money to bribe their opponents.
It won’t happen, of course. It’s not, in and of itself, enough for the Liberal Democrats. The reason why boundary changes had to be rejected after Lords reform was killed is that both measures were the keys to their respective backers’ futures: without Lords reform, the Liberals could well go extinct, and without boundary changes, the Conservatives simply can’t win a majority. They would have to achieve a dominance of the popular vote beyond anything in the democratic era. The last incumbent to come close was William Pitt the Younger: and he had George III handing over even larger sums of public money than David Cameron is willing to. But this latest measure presents Labour with an opportunity.
As objectionable as this stunt is, the Tories aren’t completely wrong: it is plainly unacceptable to have a situation where the Conservatives could finish six points ahead of the Labour party and 25 points ahead of the Liberal Democrats and still be unable to govern alone. The current arrangement of boundaries does benefit Labour, even if in the past it benefitted the Tories (and the Tories by large back first past the post – which invariably gives disproportionate results). The Conservatives shouldn’t be responding to a structural disadvantage by attempting to disenfranchise their opponents’ voters, but a Labour government would have to implement its own boundary review: anything else is simply undemocratic.
It would not mean that Labour would be left with the perfect policy at the end of it all: it would entail a series of difficult compromises. But the Conservatives are desperate for boundary reform, and sooner or later, they’ll name a price that the Liberal Democrats cannot turn down, or their own ultras will realise that STV in the Lords might not be so large a price to pay for keeping their own seats safe. A Lib-Con boundary reform would do far more damage to Labour than a red one.
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Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb
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For goodness sake, stop talking about boundaries. The key pre-requisite is registration. Labour needs to commit to a single, compulsory electoral register – no double registration for second home owners or students. Any boundary review on the current registers will actually increase the disparity between constituency sizes, because of the variation in (1) under-registration and (2) second registrations.
Isn’t there some irony in the fact that the last Labour government helped fund an electoral registration system in the unrecognised state of Somaliland, which is infinitely more fit-for-purpose and accurate than the UK’s current and proposed (single registration) arrangements?
There is nothing numerically fair about electing a government via electing members of the House of Commons as the total votes often show.
Yes, but on eligible adult population not registered electors http://labourlist.org/2012/08/now-lets-make-the-case-for-real-equal-constituencies/
As MPs represent. The whole population, why the restriction to adults?