The Rising Of The Sphinx

[Bazile]

With the redrawing of constituency boundaries , a top Conservative agenda ; will Labour find it even more difficult to do a Sphinx style rising from the ashes ?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/11593496/New-Commons-boundaries-top-Conservative-government-agenda.html

''Redrawing constituency boundaries to lock Labour out of power for a decades is at the top of the agenda for the new Conservative government, senior Tories have said. ''

[Fibonacci]

Phoenix !

[Bazile]

Indeed - i don't know where i got ' Sphinx' from

[Quoi]

It will have an effect but nothing as serious as the way the SNP have redrawn the boundary this time. Thats a lot of labour votes to work at getting back.
The tories have always had that problem in the past where Scottish labour voting gave them a 30 seat head start.

[Gromit]

The Sphinx guarded the city and asked a riddle of whoever wanted to enter.

Sometimes the riddle was unanswerable like...

" Why did Labour elect Ed Miliband? "

[Gromit]

The Conservatives have proposed a change to the Kensington and Chelsea constituency. The re-draw boundary now includes Glasgow West.

[youngmafbog]

I think the boundaries in Scotland should be amended to more represent the number of people voting. Clearly it is out of kilter proportionally.

Either that or just kick them out of the UK.

[Gromit]

Ymb,

Scottish Constituencies are only fractionally smaller than English ones. The average size of constituencies are:

England 72,000
Scotland 69,000
N. Ireland 67,00
Wales 56,000

[youngmafbog]

So I'm confused. How did 1.5m votes get 50+ seats then ?

[Gromit]

Avatar Image
Gromit
Ymb,

They got on average 25,000 votes in all the Constituencies they stood in. Which is more votes than some safe Conservative seats (Boris got 22,000). There was an MP elected in N. Ireland last week with just 9,500 votes.

[jim360]

Some level of boundary redrawing is sensible. It was said that the Tories lost at least 20 seats they might have won because of boundary issues (although these may have been the same seats the won anyway, of course). But it says something about how badly Labour did that even with the seat boundaries biased in their favour, they still fell well short.

But drawing boundaries specifically to "lock Labour out of power for decades" is a worrying development. Seats should be fair and competitive, rather than favouring one particular party. That's daylight gerrymandering of the worst sort.

[Gromit]

SNP averaged 25,000 votes per seat they contested
The Conservatives averaged 17,500 votes per seat they contested.
UKIP averaged 6,200 votes iper seat seat they contested.

[ichkeria]

Shouldn't the Boundary Commission be doing this not a political party acting in its own interests?
And by what right does the Tory party seek to reduce the number of MPs. That will mean fewer independently minded members of all parties and a higher proportion bound to the party line by direct connection with a government post.

The Turkeys have voted :-)

[dave50]

It was recommended by the Boundry Commission who are independent but the Libdems refused to vote it through in the days of the last coalition. So it's only right that this is now rectified.

[ichkeria]

The Boundary Commission recommendations don't talk about "locking Labour out of power for decades" as some tories rather surprisingly perhaps have claimed. Nor do they talk about saving money on MPs pay which was the other spin being put on the reduction for reasons I find unfathomable. You'd think it would be the other side who'd be complaining.
It is little wonder the LibDems opposed them.

[mikey4444]

Labour are in a much better situation, than the Tories were after the 1997 landslide, and they managed to get back in, so why can't Labour ?

Its not as if the Tories had a landslide that Thursday...far from it.

[bednobs]

"Indeed - i don't know where i got ' Sphinx' from "
well, it did have a X in it :)

[Gromit]

Mikey,

The result in 2015 is similar to Major's victory in 1997.

5 years later Labour won a landslide.

Of course for something similar to happen in 5 years time, Labour will need to select the right leader and policies.

[ToraToraTora]

you're 5 years off Gromit, Major won in 1992, Blair 1997

[mikey4444]

I am sure you meant 1992 Gromit, and yes, of course you are right.

But it took the Tories 13 years, three Elections and God knows how many different Leaders, to come back in 2010, and even then they couldn't manage it without some LibDems busily brown-nosing. It was said on the News today that the Tories held their first Tory Cabinet Meeting today for 18 years !

I maintain that Labour are not in anything like as hopeless a position as the right-wingers will have us believe. Its just wishful thinking on their part.

I am not sure if AB was around in 1997 but it had been, what would our majority right-wingers have been saying then ?

[ichkeria]

The big problem Labour have now is Scotland.
In 1992 it seemed straightforward: be like a softer version of the Tory party (and sit back and watch the Tories tear themselves apart).
But Labour has failed in Scotland partly because it is seen by many voters as not "proper" Labour any more. Especially as they have another party to the left of them
Also, the Tories are probably less likely to tear themselves apart now as the right wingers don't have the cause of "Maggie stabbed in the back" to be bitter about.
Plenty of time for that though :-)