Wheeling and dealing over the AV bill

tb

Has anybody ask the objecting lords whether they think it would be fair to introduce a bill that would create uneven constituencies favoring a political party?

Stewart

Parliament Act. If it can be used to ram through a ban on fox hunting then why not something slightly more important?

Equalising constituency sizes and cutting the number of MPs is the most important thing that this government will do. It will in advertantly spell the end for the coalition because once the changes are in place Cameron can call an election and will not need an 11 per cent lead for an overall majority. Everything the conservatives want to achieve in their lifetimes depends on removing Labour's inbuilt advantage at the ballot box, for the Labour party will scarcely ever be as unpopular in the medium term as they have been under Brown. Unless of course Ed Balls gets the leadership.

If this attempt fails Cameron must stuff the Lords with Tories and go public with the iniquities of the status quo (Make it an issue) until the bill passes.

toco

If Red Ed's Labour Party prevails through endless waste of hardworking taxpayers' money then so be it.However,surely this dispels forever Labour's claim to represent any interest in democracy and suggests its trades union Marxist controllers have the whip hand.

john

Remind me again why the date of May the 5th can't be put back ?

TrevorsDen

Even constituencies will be fairer. Seems self evident.

Hard to criticise it.

barnacle bill

Aye but is Cajones Cameron the man for the job?
He's failed to take the bankers on, he failed to hang the national debt/deficit around NuLabor's neck, so I hardly think a few unruly Labour Lords are going to be worried.

TrevorsDen

As i understand it barnacle the banks are going to pay about 9 billion in special tax over 5 years and the bonuses are subject to 50% tax.
Nice to be more I agree.

I think people agree the deficit is labour's - the issue is should we let it go even bigger.
But whoever they are its inevitable that NIMBYs will be opposed to cuts that affect them.
The coalition have very little good news to tell for years. A field day for NIMBYs

J H Holloway

Aside from Labour's shameless attempts to preserve the gerrymandering they indulged in during the early 1990s (led by Jack Straw), you mention the deficit.

Consider that in 2007 Brown was borrowing £35bn and £20bn in equity was being squirted into the economy from mortgage extensions.

That's£55bn of artificial, one-off, spending right there. Brown was utterly wreckless and shameless in inflating the economy through artificially low interest rates and a housing boom.

Why don't Dave and George repeat this over and over again?

Chris

Stewart, the Parliament Act 1949 allows the Lords to delay for up to a year. This bill needs to be passed by February 16th. You do the math.

Chris lancashire

Interesting that this policy was very clearly set out in the Conservative manifesto - Labour have objected to much of the Coalition's actions on the grounds that they had no mandate. On this, Labour cannot level that charge and should cease their obstruction of what is very clearly a fair policy.

Corinium

TB - yes. Strathclyde said the other day that if Labour came back into Government, it would be interesting if they tried to justify legislation creating unequally sized constituencies.

denis cooper

The question of whether any party would legislate for unequal constituencies has an easy answer.

The current "Rules for Redistribution of Seats" are laid down in Schedule 2 of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, as amended, here:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/56/schedule/2

and as I recall the Conservatives has a Commons majority in 1986.

Rule 5 states:

"The electorate of any constituency shall be as near the electoral quota as is practicable having regard to rules 1 to 4; and a Boundary Commission may depart from the strict application of rule 4 if it appears to them that a departure is desirable to avoid an excessive disparity between the electorate of any constituency and the electoral quota, or between the electorate of any constituency and that of neighbouring constituencies in the part of the United Kingdom with which they are concerned."

Rule 1 now states that the number of constituencies in Great Britain should not be substantially greater or less than 613, that Wales should have a minimum of 35 and Northern Ireland between 16 and 18 - in both cases, Wales and Northern Ireland, that meant that the Conservatives were content that on average there would be fewer electors per constituency than in England.

Previously Rule 1 also stated that Scotland should have a minimum of 71 seats, once again with fewer electors in an average constituency than in England, but that was amended by the Scotland Act 1998 so that now the same electoral quota is used in Scotland as in England.

Remember, this legislation deliberately creating unequal constituencies was passed by the Conservatives, and in the case of Scotland was amended by Labour.

The present Bill will belatedly extend the use of the same electoral quota to Wales and Northern Ireland, correcting the inequalities deliberately maintained in 1986 by the Conservative dominated Commons.

Rule 2 simply states that each constituency shall return one member; Rule 3 says that the whole of the City of London must be in one constituency, and also that a constituency which includes the Orkney Islands or the Shetland Islands shall not extend beyond those islands - a small constituency, still preserved by the new Bill.

Rule 4 lays down restrictions on constituencies crossing various local authority boundaries, which as I undersand would be largely dispensed with under the new rules.

Rule 6 lays down that a Boundary Commission may depart from the strict application of rules 4 and 5 if special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency, appear to them to render a departure desirable, while Rule 7 states that Boundary Commissions need not aim at giving full effect in all circumstances to the other Rules (apart from the one on the Orkneys and Shetland), but "they shall take account, so far as they reasonably can "inconveniences attendant on alterations of constituencies" and "any local ties which would be broken by such alterations".

As I understand, both of these Rules will be abandoned by the party of "localism".

So basically in 1986 the Conservative aim was for equal constituencies within each of the four parts of the UK, but not equal between them, and with more flexibility and scope for variation to respect local links than will be allowed in the future now that the Conservative party has decided to make a fetish of exact numerical equality.

TGF UKIP

Yet another surrender approacheth from the Polenta Eating Surrender Monkey.