Boundary Changes, What Do You Think?

[youngmafbog]

Boundary changes to reduce number of MP's and re-balance the numbers in each constituency, announced last week although I dont recall seeing them in the MSM.

Views?

https://www.bce2018.org.uk/node/6489

[dannyk13]

Reducing the number of MP's can only be a good thing.

[Gizmonster]

Call me cynical ...... but the first thing I think of, is the word, "gerrymandering" :)

[Old_Geezer]

I'm unconvinced of that. MPs already average 60000 constituents. How does that allow everyone to have access ? The idea of trying to have all constituencies have a similar number of constituents seems a reasonable aim though.

[fiction-factory]

The obsession with"MSM" and the belief that they are hiding the news (apart from the Daily Mail of course) seems odd to me.
Does the BBC not count as MSM as they have covered it?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41643467

[dannyk13]

MSM?

[fiction-factory]

MSM, main stream media- YMB uses the TLA quite a bit

[dannyk13]

Thanks FF. I'm not familiar with many of the abbreviations used on AB.

[fiction-factory]

Example here danny https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1576882.html

[naomi24]

danny, me neither.

fiction-factory, TLA? I don't understand why you posted that link.

[ToraToraTora]

anything that reduces MPs or any layer of authority is good. of course it does not go far enough. Here's what I would do
- Reduce MPs to no more that 400
- Replace the Lords woth a senate of 100 elected members
- abolish all the devolved Parliaments
- abolish all the Mayordoms
- abolish all local authorities and replace with competant management for local services say no more than 12 per council.
sorted!

[youngmafbog]

It's anything for a dig at me Naomi, look 3 posts to do it!!

TLA is a Three Letter Acronym. I know I overuse but I spent so many years working with Americans especially in a Banking Environment some of it like TLA's has rubbed off.

I'm not suggesting the Min stream media are not reporting it more it does not seem to be near the top. I would have thought something like this pretty important. And that goes for other similar posts I make.

If you dont like my posts or the way I contstruct them please dont click on them, it is NOT mandatory. I see you have not even had the good grace to answer the question, simply used the post to have a go. Nice.

[youngmafbog]

I'd sort of agree TTT with the following addition:

Remove all Quangos (Remember the bonfire of Quangos that Camoron forgot to complete?)

[Deskdiary]

The only thing I would add to TTT's list is to pay MPs a decent salary to attract the best in society. Say £250,000?

As it stands I'd suggest they're pretty poorly paid and therefore morons like Abbott get the job because talented people don't want it for the money offered (cue the hackneyed 'what about the nurses' nonsense comparison).

[Gromit]

Good list Tora,
I don’t quite agree with all of it.
- Abolish UK Parliament and replace with an English Parliament of reduced size.
- Scrap local councils and replace with elected Assemblies.
- Abloish the elected Mayors.
- Abolish the elected Police Commissioners.

[Jackdaw33]

The USA seem to manage fine with 435 Congressmen and 100 Senators.

[davegosling]

"TLA is a Three Letter Acronym"

Or, more accurately in this case, "Three Letter Abbreviation", as MSM isn't an acronym.

[fiction-factory]

I dealt with part of your question, YMB- the bit where you said "although I dont recall seeing them in the MSM. "
As to the rest of it my view on boundary changes is that they are needed as the range of constituency sizes is far too large, but I know that for every change there will be winners and losers and so it's probably never going to possible to find a balance which is acceptable to all.

[youngmafbog]

Except the question was: Boundary Changes, What Do You Think?

Still, you have answered now so thank you for your contribution. I suspect you are right some will be happy others not.

[jim360]

Gerrymandering isn't quite such an issue in the UK as it is in, say, the US (watch this space, as a case about political gerrymandering just recently went before the Supreme Court). As long as it's in the hand of an independent body then we can reasonably trust the boundaries to be based on population rather than political bias. And anyway, the current boundaries tend to favour Labour, if anything.

[New Judge]

The idea that 400 MPS is insufficient for the UK is nonsense. The US Congress has 535 members (100 senators and 435 Representatives) for a population of around 325m. That is (roughly) one for every 600,000 people. By contrast, even leaving aside the ridiculously bloated (and seemingly ever-increasing) House of Lords, the UK has 650 MPs for around 65m people – one for every 100,000. But with a people:reprentatives ratio of six times smaller I don’t recall ever hearing that the US suffers from a lack of representation.

There is no need for so many MPs especially as for the past 40 years for many issues they have been simply riding on the coat tails of the EU, rubber stamping its edicts into UK law. The UK has far too many layers of government and administration and I completely agree with 3Ts idea of abolishing all but central government. A reduced House of Commons could then set about running the country as a single entity without the ridiculous division and rancour caused by Mr Blair’s stupid devolution arrangements. Personally I don't think paying them £250k will attract a better class of candidate. People capable of earning that sort of money would probably prefer to go and get a proper job.

As an aside, what’s happened with the Northern Ireland Assembly is a case in point. Principally because of shortcomings in its constitution (necessitating so-called “power sharing” between two factions fundamentally opposed to each other on a major principle) It was suspended in 2002-03 for around a year and has again been suspended for the past four months. As far as I know nobody has died or failed to have their dustbins emptied as a result. It is clearly an expensive, unnecessary institution as are most of the other local government outfits spread across the land.