An analysis - Merseyside boundary figures released

On Friday, the Boundary Commission released the electorate results for the UK.


These are the figures that will be used as the basis for allocating new boundaries in advance of the next election, in order to reach the Conservative's magic number of 600 constituencies - a reduction of 50 from the current number.

Every constituency in the UK will be reviewed, while the Boundary Commission rejigs the political map to make sure each is within 5% of the UK electorate quota of 76,641.  Therefore each constituency must have between 72,810 and 80,473 voters.

In Merseyside, only Knowsley, Liverpool Riverside, St Helens North and St Helens South & Whiston are currently within this range.

Across Merseyside there is a total electorate of 1,010,822, which if divided by the electorate quota gives us 14.01 seats, compared to the current 15 we have now.  Therefore, we can expect to lose one seat within Merseyside.

What is not clear is how the boundary commission will reach its conclusions - will it create constituencies that cross county boundaries? There is an expectation they will, but with Merseyside managing an almost perfect divisible number of 14, it's still possible that won't happen here, except for one awkward problem - the River Mersey.

Looking at the numbers there are severe deficiencies in seats such as Birkenhead and Wirral South on one side and Liverpool Walton and Liverpool Wavertree on the other - each only managing a touch over 62,000.  But they're on different sides of the Mersey.  When sticking to county boundaries you reach the intractable problem of cross-river constituencies which almost nobody in their right mind thinks is a good idea.  The solution therefore will probable mean seepage into the surrounding counties of Cheshire and Lancashire.

Ellesmere Port and Neston, with 66,965 voters has got to be worrying about whether it is a sacrificial lamb to both Wirral and Cheshire Seats, sitting in the middle as it does.  This would protect Eddisbury and Tatton (both just over 65,000) from change and leave unharmed two Conservative frontbenchers.  (Is Stephen O'Brien a frontbencher?  Haven't seen him in a while....)

Or we could just abolish the seat with the fewest voters, Wirral West (only 55, 077) removing the Wirral's only Conservative MP. If not, savvy Labour seat-seekers should start showing an interest in Wirral West as it absorbs an almost 40% increase in voters from nearby, more labour, areas........

A final note - the electorate figures for Liverpool are 315,865 in contrast to the population of 441,900 at the last census - just 71%.  No other evidence should be necessary that this is a flawed methodology for calculating how people are represented.  It isn't hard to use our imaginations to work out why a Conservative government would want to restructure the whole democratic system in this way.


You can see the numbers and news release for yourself at http://www.boundarycommissionforengland.org.uk/ 

A prediction - Compared to the forests, the backlash behind boundary changes will catch the Gov't by surprise

We can all be slightly amused by the sight of the Government blinking in the headlights of hundreds of thousands of chelsea tractors as middle England reacted to the potential sale of the country's forests.

However, it gives us a nice indication of how the country might behave at the next big cross-party (or rather non-party) reaction.

My belief is that the response to the forests sell off was huge because it is definitively a bad thing.  Only really, really evil people who want to chop down trees were in favour.  Opposing the sell off was only possible because there was no downside, no repercussions, to opposing it in the eyes of middle and upper England.

We can sometimes forget that not everyone is opposed to NHS reform.  Not everyone is opposed to the budget cuts.  Some people think that if you can't afford private childcare, then don't have children.  Despite the anger, the shouting, the petitions and the banners there are people who believe what is happening is right or, at the very least, aren't sure enough to change their behaviour or vote differently because of it.

But the trees.......  How can anyone agree with selling them off?!?  The sleeping giant of small 'c' conservatives was rustled out of bed and lumbered to battle.

And the next issue that will set them off?  Boundary changes.

Boundary changes will affect everyone, they will drive bulldozers through traditional barriers, run roughshod over county perimeters, throw history overboard the sinking ship of Britain.

The spluttering sentinels of traditional values will wake up one day to be told that their identity, their mental boundaries, must be moved because a bureaucrat with a calculator says that the previous constituency reached the magic number of 75,000 residents some miles away and they now live in Constituency 432(Lower) - Name undesignated.

These are the ones who care about postcodes and what it says about their town.  They care that their lives are associated with one town, or a county, and not the other one.  They care about the history of it.  They care who they share their constituency with and they care about the insurance premiums they believe will rise because of the change.

They CARE.    In capitals.

And they will care that history, identity, common sense, will all be ditched for numerical superiority.

And they will write to their MP - Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem alike.  In the thousands.  

And there will be no reason not to.

And the Government will not be ready for them.