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”
Anon E Mouse
Chris – The recession is already over, you can feel it. That may not be down to Lib-Dem policies in government; I suppose as useless a Chancellor and Prime Minister Gordon Brown was he did get the theory right on the economy turning round.
Like David Miliband I won’t forgive him for destroying the popularity of Labour (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100709/tuk-miliband-labour-s-failings-worsened-dba1618.html) or the spin, lies and bully boy tactics he engaged in but the economy has turned.
On that basis all bets are off regarding the Lib-Dems. They are in government yet has a decrease in seats at the election.
Lib-Dem voters, need to get real – you don’t affect peoples lives by bleating on with silly childish ideas like getting rid of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. They should grow up.
I do agree with you though about voters memories being longer than you think and after the way Brown treated the electors in this country Labour has a long time in opposition….
Chris
@Anon
Yes the recession is over but the economic miracle I was referring to was the one where the private sector creates ~2 million net jobs over the next five years. Where industry investment rockets and Britain manufacturing goes through an unprecedented renaissance. Unless that happens we risk five years of high unemployment and stagnation.
Tory voters won’t care in the main, either they’re rich or poor and totally bonkers but LibDems voters will.
Coyote
One point that’s missing over the reduction of MPs. The post devolution settlement.
Given that we have the Scottish Parliament now, and the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies, it is clear that Parliament has less workload than it did before 1997 and any devolution (full marks to Labour for supporting devolution). Eg: Scottish education – devolved matter, Northern Ireland policing – recently a devolved matter, etc.
Therefore, it seems sensible to reduce the number of MPs in Parliament considerably. A reduction of a few MPs from Scotland clearly isn’t enough.
Cost also comes into this. We have a budget deficit that is criminal in size. I’d rather get rid of 100 MPs than close a hospital somewhere, any day of the week.
With regards Marks point about changes in campaigning, I’d agree with that. The Lib Dems have a habit of targetting 1 seat in a region – they feel like a party that hasn’t got the resources to fight an all out general election.
Hence them winning seats like Burnley.
With boundary changes will come a change in Lib Dem targetting. And one thing is clear from their resources, the Lib Dems target above all else.
aaron peters
RT @leftfootfwd: Lib Dem turkeys vote for Christmas http://bit.ly/clBf2Z
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