Political Question

[andrewducker]

At the moment the House of Lords are debating the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.

I've heard numerous claims that this bill is incredibly unfair, and blatant gerrymandering by the Conservative Party.

Looking at the details, I'm feeling baffled. I can see a claim that the exemption for the three Scottish constituencies (Two Liberal Democrat, on Scottish National Party) are biased in their favour. But I can't see how a system whereby people are grouped together in what's going to be a massively arbitrary manner (each area must be within 5% of the national average, and are set up by independent bodies - the Boundary Commissions).

I don't really have a stake in this one - I'd just like someone to explain how this system would give an advantage to any one party. I can see that it could _remove_ advantage from a party if the old system with much less equal constituency sizes gave that party an advantage, but I'm totally failing to see how it's anything like gerrymandering.

Am I missing something obvious?

Comments

[fearmeforiampink]

If they're the ones for the Shetland Isles and so forth, that the needs of the Island are quite different to that of the mainland near it, and that it'd be impractical for one person to do both.

The general argument in Scotland against it was that in low population areas you'll get massive (geographically speaking) areas, with some very different communities with different needs and/or the MP unable to properly work for them all.

[andrewducker]

Of course, in citites you have small geographic areas with some very different communities with different needs.

(As you can probably tell, I get the size argument, but not the different needs argument.)