The Tory plan to cut 50 parliamentary constituencies and so 50 MPs comes before the Commons today. Tristram Hunt — a Labour MP — has written in the FT:
A Tory party with any notion of conservatism should be troubled by a bill that places utility above tradition, separates people from place and past, and ruptures the unwritten constitution in order to hold a coalition together. It would certainly have worried Edmund Burke, who mourned the passing of an age of chivalry when “that of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded”.
And:
On the pretext of reducing the cost of politics, the new plan will cut the Commons down by some 50 seats, to an arbitrary total of 600. In the process, a little of the political fabric of Britain will be lost. The legislation demands that constituencies average out at 75,000 voters. So whereas current boundaries take account of geography, local government, history, and identity — producing seats with an electorate ranging from 65,000 to 85,000 — the new legislation puts place or loyalty aside
Take the Isle of Wight, represented since the Great Reform Act of 1832 by a single MP, but soon to be dismantled into a crazy series of seats criss-crossing the Solent. County boundaries will be straddled too. So far only west country MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has cottoned on that this might not constitute a conservative approach. “Will the minister bear in mind the fact that people have historic loyalties to the traditional counties of England, not to administrative regions?” he recently pleaded of his front-bench. “Will the people of Somerset be allowed their historic county, not some monstrous, vague, administrative nonsense?” Fat chance.
I suspect there is fat chance of opposing this.
But it is profoundly unconservative, and the simple process of cutting MP numbers is profoundly undemocratic at a time when we need to strengthen and not undermine parliament.
But of course — being unconservative and being anti-democrtic are both very neoliberal. And that’s what this lot are. And nothing must get in the way of that.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Mr Hunt dissembles mightily, methinks. Whilst he is correct that the equalised constituencies will take less account of historic counties, anything has to be preferable to the crazy current system whereby one of the major political parties could comfortably “win” an election whilst gaining far fewer votes than its rival.
In fact, the gross malapportionment under the present system more resembles what one would expect from an African quasi-dictatorship than a Western democracy. Although on reflection, that is probably unfair — to African quasi-dictatorships, given that when the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission redrew the boundaries before the last election, they managed to produce a reasonably fair and equable set of constituencies.
Mr Hunt’s statistic that present electorates range from 65,000 to 85,000 people is also a deliberate distortion of the truth — the MP for Orkney & Shetland represents approximately 42,000 constituents whilst the MP for the Isle of Wight represents some 140,000.
Whether Parliament comprises 600 or 650 or 700 MPs is frankly a red herring: what matters is that there is a level playing field, with both the Government and Opposition capable of assuming power if they win the most votes.
Comparing the last two elections is instructional: in 2005, Labour gained 35% of the vote to the Conservatives’ 32%, giving them a hefty overall majority of 66, whereas in 2010 the Conservatives gained 36% to Labour’s 29%, resulting in a hung parliament and the possibility of the defeated Government clinging to power in a ragbag coalition with the Liberal Democrats and every kind of regional and minority party. How on earth is this democratic?
But then, New Labour have never been very interested in democracy or fairness or anything other than narrow self-interest and short-term expediency. Quite apart from anything else, if the situation were reversed and the electoral system were stacked against them, we may be certain that their howls of protest would be deafening.
Actually I think this isn’t very relevant: constituency numbers do fluctuate, and a large number of boundaries were tweaked for the 2010 election.
What I think is relevant is the fact that under current systems the one vote you have is worth rather more or less depending on where it’s cast (take a look at http://www.voterpower.org.uk). Without some degree of proportional representation (which would also have to alter the “local” relationship) I don’t believe that we will get representative democracy (I’m unconvinced by AV/STV).
@Iliam Dhone
You can safely assume I disagree with this comment.
It’s so biased it does not deserve further reply.
@James
I think that as in anything obsession with a statistic can be taken too far
I do believe we need STV in the UK
I also believe we need an elected second chamber – and that the two chambers should use differing electoral systems
But whilst we have first past the post what Hunt says makes a lot of sense
And allegations of bias do not
I think we need full proportional representation in the UK. The “constituency link” is the most overrated concept in politics. I live in Essex and this means that I am pretty much always represented by an extreme right wing Tory MP who is not going to have any interest in responding to my concerns because he/she doesn’t share any of my political convictions. The same problem would apply if I was a person of right-wing political views living somewhere like Hackney (for example).
The obvious solution is to have larger constituencies with (say) 7 MPs per constituency and adopt the PR system used for the European elections and use that for Westminster elections as well. This would pretty much guarantee some combination of Tory, Labour and Lib Dem MPs for every seat in England – maybe with some smaller party representation as well. It’d replace local political monopolies with democratic pluralism and competition.
I do agree with Iliam that we need equal constituency sizes and the current system is biased towards Labour.
AV (which I don’t think will be accepted in the May 2011 referendum) is a fudge – it’s not really clear to me that it represents an improvement on the current system. It’s amusing to see Nick Clegg, who (rightly) referred to AV as a “miserable compromise” in the election campaign, now trolling round the country frantically trying to talk up the prospects for AV. But then that’s only one of dozens of sell-outs that he’s made over the last 4 months. How anyone can take this (to use a stock Tony Blair phrase) nincompoop seriously is beyond me.
This comment has been deleted. It failed the moderation policy noted here. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/comments/. The editor’s decision on this matter is final.
Further on this, a good article by Caroline Lucas MP in the Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/caroline-lucas-give-the-voters-real-choice-2071310.html
The Green Party supports the Additional Member System (AMS) which I’d agree is another good alternative to the current system for Westminster elections (it’s already used for Scottish and Welsh assembly elections). Worth considering for sure.
@Howard
Your argument against the constituency link is not a very good one.
The overwhelming majority of MPs – both Labour and Conservative – would never refuse to respond to a constituent on account of which party they supported. In fact that is a strength of FPTP – an MP represents ALL of their constituents not just the ones that voted for them.
The alternative Additional Member System or any multi-member system would mean all Tory supporters going to the Tory MP, all Labour supporters going to the Labour MP which I don’t think is very healthy for democracy.
@Rob
On the contrary I think it’s much MORE healthy for democracy if all Labour supporters go to the Labour MP, all Tory supporters go to the Tory MP. Otherwise we’re left with the ludicrous spectacle of me writing to my Tory MP saying “please can you vote against the coalition’s Finance Bill arising from the emergency budget as it is the most reactionary Budget since 1981”. Are they going to agree to that? Of course not. So to that extent they are not representing ALL their constituents – just the Tory ones. This is the inherent logic of FPTP – and the reason it’s a bad system.
I know many instances of MPs failing to respond to constituents – some based on personal experience.
@Howard
Agreed, absolutely, from Tory proof south west Norfolk where for al practical purposes I am utterly disenfranchised
How does that equate with equality?
I want a Labour MP to go to who represents me
A Norfolk constituency and STV would give me that
I think a much more fundamental change would occur if it was a requirement that any MP had some link with the constituency (i.e. living, working or having been brought up there) and that the local party members had the chance to decide who the candidate should be. Too many career politicians around who believe they are answerable to the party rather than the electorate. You don’t need to be represented by somebody with the same political view, but you do need somebody who can listen to you and be willing to ask awkward questions on your behalf.
Richard – Do you realise that the side effect of your strict comment moderation policy is that the most interesting discussions of your blog posts occur on other people’s blogs? Are you not concerned by this?
Your position would be strengthened, not weakened, if you allowed disagreement, and then addressed the points made.
Blocking comments just because they disagree with you simply leaves you shouting in the wilderness, and excluded from genuine conversation and debate.
@Martin Audley
No – I count that a considerable bonus
You may not realise this – but most wise and informed people never read comments on blogs – and most especially the ones that you might be referring to – precisely because – how do I put this politely? – the people you call ‘interesting’ are from beyond the pale
I don’t want such comments here
And I can tell you nor do most readers of this blog want them here
I’m delighted if they’re elsewhere
But Martin, blog traffic here has actually gone UP since Richard tightened up the comments policy… suggesting that the right-wing rants actually turned more people off than they attracted.
I’m sure there is interesting discussion going on elsewhere about the issues raised here (it’s a big internet, after all) but when I googled ‘”Richard Murphy” blog’ the top search results not referring to this site or TJN were the Devils’ Kitchen (an extreme right-wing loon who swears a lot at people) and Tim Worstall (an extreme right-wing loon who doesn’t swear a lot at people).
Given the choice of this blog, Devil’s Kitchen or Tim Worstall, I know where I’d rather be.
A very reasonable point. Well done.
@Howard
I think that’s the way the person on the Clapham omnibus would put it
I think that’s unlikely. I’ve never known of anybody avoiding a blog because of the comments which accompany it.
A more realistic explanation is that by shying away from debate and pushing the serious discussion on to other fora, it’s resulted in more external sites referring back and providing more traffic.
@Paul Lockett
Oh yes they do
Start at Comment is Free where traffic would be much higher without the comments
I for one wish the Guardian would block them all
And let’s also be honest – where else is this discussion? Name the sites, please. If we’re talking Worstall let’s all have a laugh
@Richard Murphy
That’s supposition on your part for which I see no evidence.
I don’t doubt it.
I have found Worstall to provide a well thought out and moderate counterpoint to your extreme right positions. That said, although I’m sure he provides a significant volume of traffic, he probably doesn’t generate too much discussion, as his comments are generally so incisive that they don’t leave much room for debate around them.
@Paul Lockett
a) No it isn’t supposition – it is opinion based on informed sources
b) Re Worstall – note Howard reed, above
c) he send remarkably little traffic this way – I know – I look at these things. If he went away I’d lose maybe 25 reads a day. Our of 4,000 or so on an average weekday
Sorry – you’re out on the fringes – and if you think you’re moderate that says why I always wonder why you get on here
This comment has been deleted. It failed the moderation policy noted here. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/comments/. The editor’s decision on this matter is final.
This comment has been deleted. It failed the moderation policy noted here. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/comments/. The editor’s decision on this matter is final.
This comment has been deleted. It failed the moderation policy noted here. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/comments/. The editor’s decision on this matter is final.
“But it is profoundly unconservative, and the simple process of cutting MP numbers is profoundly undemocratic at a time when we need to strengthen and not undermine parliament.”
Whilst I agree with the point about constituency boundaries, the need for an elected 2nd chamber (and I like the idea of two different voting systems) it is not the numbers of MPs that is the problem, but the quality.
We need strong, independently minded, MPs who will scrutinise legislation and hold the executive to account. We have far too many drones, in all the parties, who owe their safe seats to patronage and therefore won’t buck the party whip.