Wednesday, January 30, 2013

boundary changes


The Tories will be very disappointed by yesterday’s defeat in the House of Lords over the proposed electoral boundary changes. According to the BBC’s Six O’clock News yesterday, it seems that the changes might have provided the Conservatives with as many as 20 extra seats at the next General Election.
However, I suspect that their tears will be of the crocodile variety.
As far as the impending Scottish Referendum on potential independence is concerned (in Autumn 2014 – to coincide, perhaps, with the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn?!), Mr Cameron has nailed his colours to the Union flag.
Of course, this is a very sensible “win-win” strategy.
If the Scots vote against independence, Cameron will take huge credit for keeping the union together (even though, I suspect, his support might encourage people to vote in favour!). If the Scots opt for independence, Cameron will shake his head and declare it a very sad day for the “old country”…
Actually, if the Scots do opt for independence, Cameron and his party will privately (and some not so privately) be jumping for joy – because this will ultimately remove all the Scottish MPs from the House of Commons and thereby (because of the current 58 Scottish MPs, only ONE of them is Conservative) make all future General Elections very much more difficult/virtually impossible(?) for the other “major” English parties to form a future Government.
So, while yesterday’s debate was all about electoral boundary changes… the REAL boundary change vote has still to happen.
Maybe it’s time for us all to move north?

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