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.