David Cameron accused of using constitutional reform to rig parliament

[n2doc]

Toby Helm, political editor
The Observer, Sunday 14 November 2010

David Cameron was accused last night of trying to "rig" both houses of parliament for political advantage by slashing the number of MPs by 50 and planning to pack the Lords with dozens more Conservative peers.

Anger over the coalition government's constitutional reform plans – which will also involve the redrawing of constituency boundaries – will burst into the open tomorrow when they are debated in the Lords. Anxious peers of all political persuasions have set the scene in a stinging report, condemning the way in which the coalition is pressing ahead with the reduction in the number of Commons seats from 650 to 600 without "any considered assessment of the role and function of MPs".

The all-party Lords select committee on the constitution suggests that the changes, which are designed to create numerically equal constituencies of around 75,000 voters, risk diluting democracy by increasing the power of the executive at the expense of parliament. "We are concerned that the bill could possibly result in the executive's dominance over parliament being increased," the report states. "This is an unsatisfactory basis on which to embark on the fundamental reform of the legislature."

Labour insists that the proposed changes to the Commons are an attempt at "crude gerrymandering" designed to increase the Tories' chances of winning a higher proportion of seats at the next election.

more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/14/david-cameron-lords-reform

Let's see..."wins" 36% in the last election, gets power barely by getting a center--left party to sell out, then works on rigging the next election. Sounds like Cameron learned his lessons well from the Repubs over here.

[malaise]

1. This arrogant little fugger

will learn the hard way. He and Clegg will soon been more unpopular than Thatcher after the Poll Tax.

[Pab Sungenis]

2. But will that unpopularity

be enough to stop their agenda before they put the fix in?

[malaise]

5. Who knows

We can hope

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The seat changes are not 'rigging' - they will make it fairer

Labour haven't got a leg to stand on here. The average Conservative seat has an electorate of 72,218; the average Labour 68,366. You can argue, as the Electoral Reform Society blog does, that that doesn't matter too much, or speculate that Labour seats have more people who are eligible to register, but haven't done so (note that technically, if they were sent a registration form, it's illegal for them not to (it's the same form for registering for jury duty), but it is possible that they themselves never saw the form). But you can't say that evening up the constituency sizes is 'gerrymandering'.

The one bit of possible gerrymandering at present is the small sizes of Welsh constituencies. They have significantly fewer voters than Scotland or England (Scotland has a case for having 3 or 4 seats with fewer electors in, in the Highlands and Islands, because of the physical size of constituencies). Wales ought to have 32 MPs in the current parliament to even up the numbers with England, not 40. And, since Labour has 26 out of the 40 Welsh MPs, it's Labour who may be benefiting from gerrymandering at the moment.

The plan to add another 50 Tories to the House of Lords is more dubious. But the article skims over that without much thought.

[defendandprotect]

4. K&R