Boundary Changes: Jury Team know as thing or two about saving money
There has been much talk about Boundary Changes affecting the outcome of the coming general election in Britain. This always happens and it is always talked about. So what is actually going on and what is going to happen?
The new House of Commons will start with 650 seats. Something the Jury Team say is ridiculous as some constituencies are elected upon with 120,000 electorate (such as the Isle of Wight) whereas others have less than half that number of electorate, such as many of the North England inner city areas that typically favour the Labour Party. That said, boundary reviews generally favour the Conservatives Party simply because the trend is for people to move out of inner city areas towards the suburbs.
So, we find the 2010 changes create 13 new seats (10 notionally Conservative and 3 Liberal Democrat) with the abolition of 9 seats (two-thirds being Labour). This means that on the current set up, should the 2005 election have been held now Labour’s majority would have been 36 rather than 64. That said, though the new boundaries favour the Tories, in reality the effect is only marginal. Under the 2005 boundaries Labour would lose it’s majority with a swing of 2.2%, but under the new this is slightly better for the Conservatives who now only require a swing of 1.5%. And it’s a swing of 6.9% (as opposed to the previous 7.4% to gain an overall majority in the House).
But though the task has been made that little bit harder for Labour to hang onto power, it seems the Conservatives have hardly been making real headway to secure victory.
See you again in another five years for yet more boundary changes!!
The Jury Team continue to argue for larger constituency boundaries and less MPs in the House. They propose for legislation to be introduced in the next Parliamentary calendar for the Boundary Commissions in each of the four nations of the UK to recast the constituencies in time for the general election in 2015. And with each MP costing an average of more than £600,000 the proposed reduction in the number of Westminster MPs would allow for a saving of more than £130 million for the same job being done. A better, more efficient use of the public purse.
Tags: 2010, Boundary Changes, General Election, Isle of Wight, MPs, Reducing MPs
