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

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think if I were going for the whole country as a multi-member constituency I’d be tempted to go for open party lists. I just don’t like the idea a party head office telling me who is going to be an MP.

Whilst your 0.2% threshold suggestion gets round this if the candidates for MP disagree between themselves about who should get on the list and be given priority I wonder if it does enough for me, the voter, if I think that candidate turquoise 10 is better than turquoise 6 even if the turquoise party as a whole are happy enough with the situation or the situation where I prefer Lilac 1 to turquoise 11 on some fairly narrow grounds that mean a lot to me.

My suggestion does of course create a huge ballot paper which may, in fact, be unworkable.

However, if you used electronic voting you could manage the ballot as an on line questionnaire.