Additional research by Maria Arbiter of the Fabian Society
The Liberal Democrats will be the party most affected by the cut in the number of seats announced by Nick Clegg on Monday, research undertaken by Left Foot Forward reveals. In his statement on constitutional and political reform, in which he confirmed the news broken by Left Foot Forward a week ago, that a referendum of electoral reform would be held on May 5th next year, the deputy prime minister unveiled plans for a boundary review – resulting in the loss of 50 MPs.
More than 40 per cent of Lib Dem seats (23 out of 57) are isolated, surrounded entirely by seats of opposing parties – including Mr Clegg’s Sheffield Hallam constituency – while his Coalition partners are the least likely to be affected: just 1.3 per cent of Tory seats (4 out of 307) are isolated. For Labour, the figure is 4.7 per cent (12 out of 258).
As a consequence of the boundary review, some seats will stay the same size while others will get much larger, which we haven’t accounted for. On a uniform enlargement, however, it is clear the Liberal Democrats stand to be affected the most from enlarging constituencies to take in areas of non-Lib Dem held seats.
While it has been suggested by some that Labour’s opposition to the propsed changes is purely cynical, there are many principle reasons for opposing these particular reforms, one of them being that cutting the number of MPs would do nothing to improve proportionality, as explained below.
During the writing of the Jenkins ‘Commission on the Voting System,’ Dr. David Butler, the eminent psephologist, was asked to convene a group of academics – including Vernon Bogdanor, John Curtice, and Patrick Dunleavy – to consider a series of questions including, “Can deviation from proportionality under the current system be corrected to any significant degree by changing the criteria for redrawing constituency boundaries?”
They replied:
“The principal sources of disproportionality have nothing to do with boundary-drawing or the detailed statutory rules which the Boundary Commissioners have to apply. Changes in these rules would do very little to make results more proportional…
“In general, no significant reduction in disproportionality can be expected from further action to improve the workings of FPTP.”
The Butler discussion also looked at ‘bias‘ which has swung from the Conservatives in the 1950s and 1960s to Labour in recent years. They outlined a number of solutions, including “more frequent drawing of boundaries” but concluded that:
“All of these policies would be likely to prove controversial. In any event only a limited net difference could possibly result from pursuing these approaches. They could not cure the disproportionality of the sort experienced by the SNP and the Liberal Democrats.”
More recently, the Independent recently cited new research at the University of Plymouth :
“The geography of each party’s support base is much more important, so changes in the redistribution procedure are unlikely to have a substantial impact and remove the significant disadvantage currently suffered by the Conservative Party.”
30 Responses to “Lib Dem turkeys vote for Christmas”
Chris
“The issue of constituency size and the number is linked when you’re starting from the basis of constituencies already being different sizes.”
No it isn’t, the size of constituencies in population terms can be brought closer to the average than it already is without reducing the number of MPs by 50. That is exactly what the boundary commission have done in the previous boundary reviews.
“Labour made a start on electoral registration, although as usual with an oddly half hearted effort.”
Yeh, just like Labour half heartedly invested billions in the NHS, education and policing to name a few. Did Labour half heartedly introduce the human rights act? Devolution for Scotland and Wales? Stop genocide in Sierra Leone? Tackle the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s while Cable flip-flopped on recapitalisation, QE, stimulus measures, etc.
“For Labour to suddenly start criticising the coalition on this, when it’s also said it would be tackling voter registration is bizarre.”
LOL, the very point Labour are making is that the LibCons aren’t tackling voter registration they’re sweeping it under the carpet while enacting a huge change to our constitution.
“On using outdated information, this is true at any point in time.”
Now you really are contorting yourself to defend the Lib Dems here – which is out of date the 2001 census or the 2011 census? Please I thought you sound reasonable, if a little tribal.
“The boundary commission will continue to update boundaries as it always has with the most recent information. It has to start sometime. As usual, your argument is based on party politics over the nation. You’d come up with reasons to stop any progress being made, as is evident already.”
How am I arguing based on party politics? Your the one defending an attempt to gerrymander the electoral system.
“The Lib Dems aren’t the Tories lap dogs, just as we were never Labours lap dogs as so many of you thought was natural.”
Look I never thought the LibDems were Labours lap dogs, for many years they were more of an intellectual opposition to Labour than anything the morally bankrupt tory party could manage. I had great respect for Charles Kennedy and the Lib Dems for their opposition to Iraq, which many Labour MPs and supporters also opposed including me. However, what does annoy me is the Lib Dems who speak in the language of the centre-left but whose policies are rooted in the centre-right. Nick Clegg states he wants less income inequality but then actually encourages Osborne to slash tax credits which are the key policy that has stopped inequality reaching 19th century levels during the past decade of unprecedented salary inflation at the top.
Anon E Mouse
I see that reducing the number of MP’s can only be a good thing, who on earth wants MORE government – this article shows a complete lack of understanding of the electoral position that the Lib-Dems are now in. They are in government not opposition.
AV comes in. By 2012 the feel good factor will be in with the Olympics, the coalition will be on top of the legacy that last useless government left them with.
Unions giving money to one political party will be reformed, squeezing Labour again and the coalition will simply suggest that under AV the Tories give their second preference to the Lib Dems and vice versa.
The result? Labour crushed at the next election. I was completely vindicated last time with my prediction (made after Blair was unfairly ousted btw) and will be again.
It doesn’t matter who is elected Labour leader (hope it’s David Miliband and not his weird brother though) they are becoming more and more irrelevant by the minute.
For once I agree with Polly Toynbee who shares this irrelevance point and adds herself that if Labour doesn’t buck it’s ideas up they will be considered petty and spiteful.
Labour needs to lose the group think, get a grip and act intelligently and the picture here of Nick Clegg shows how little the left wing blogs have learned – “Fire Up The Quattro” anyone?
Mark Pack
You’ve not said much about the methodology used, but if I understand it right, it seems to be pretty inaccurate because you’re assuming that parties won’t campaign differently (and so voters vote differently) if boundaries change?
If an area a party hasn’t previously campaigned in seriously gets added to a seat it holds, then that level of campaigning is going to change drastically and so the previous vote figures won’t be a particularly helpful guide.
(This isn’t just a theoretical issue, it’s one that we’ve seen played out time and time again when boundaries have changed; assumptions that campaigning patterns don’t change often lead to very misleading projections for parties whose levels of campaigning varying greatly across the country.)
Anon E Mouse
Mark Pack – Absolutely agree on the different types of campaigning but unless the coalition falls apart next time the Lib-Dems can say “We took the serious decisions in government” and indeed they may have.
AV or not this will work well for the Lib-Dems I feel and regardless of the AV outcome we may actually enter a world of three party politics…
Chris
@Mark Pack
“pretty inaccurate because you’re assuming that parties won’t campaign differently”
You mean the tradition LibDem method of misleading voters by misrepresenting their actual policies, as they ran throughout the 2010 election. Voters memories are longer than you think, they won’t forget VAT bomb shells very soon. Unless there is an economic miracle the LibDems will be in a very sticky situation.