Peter Oborne: Boundary Commission is still harming Tories

Peter Oborne notes evidence from Exeter University's John Maloney that Conservatives will need an 8.5% to 10.5% lead over Labour to win an overall majority. Tony Blair won a 60 seat majority in May with just a 3% lead over Michael Howard's Tories.  This disadvantage is a result, Oborne writes, of two key policies of the UK Boundary Commission:

1. The small relative  size of Welsh and Scottish constituencies (that tend to vote Labour).   If, for example, Welsh  constituencies were the same size as their English counterparts there would only be 32 (not 40) Welsh MPs.
2. The Commission's failure to keep pace with population movements from Labour-voting urban seats to more Tory suburban and rural seats. Oborne notes how the constituency map used for May's election was 14 years out-of-date and worth 15-20 seats to Labour.

Mr Oborne concludes by saying that the Tory plight has been made to look much worse by these distortions.  He notes how commentators often compare recent Tory election results with Michael Foot's 1983 showing. That is unfair, he believes, because all defeated Tory leaders - Major, Hague and Howard - have all polled much bigger shares of the vote.

Comments

[James Hellyer]

I think this is all the warning the "One Last Heave" brigade should need. We need around 44% of the vote or we're toast - again.