Who’s really ‘gerrymandering’? Express attack on Labour backfires
Columnist Ross Clark throws a stick but it's really a boomerang
Express columnist Ross Clark warns that Labour are seeking to ‘manipulate voting rules’ to fudge the result of the EU referendum (May 26, p12). He accuses the party of ‘blatant gerrymandering’ in calling for the vote to be open to 16 and 17-year-olds.
Mr Clark even decides to show off a bit with some trivia about the provenance of the term:
“What they are doing is a grubby piece of gerrymandering – named after a 19th-century governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, who redrew electoral boundaries in such a way as to maximise his chances of winning.”
This certainly is a grubby move. But isn’t there another contemporary example that better suits the charge of gerrymandering?
Perhaps the scheme to redraw electoral boundaries in such a way as to maximise their chances of winning by the current Conservative government..?
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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