Parliament

Someone finally agrees with me, in that the constituency gerrymandering currently going on in Parliament starts from the decision to reduce the number of MPs. Ralph Scott in the New Statesman introduces me to the paper written by Lewis Baston and Stuart Wilks-Heeg showing that the UK has less elected politicians than most OECD states; this is mainly due to the fact that most of the comparator nations have large and active local government layers but also by measuring the ratio of MPs to population, looking at this via a per capita lens changes the perspective. While I admire Corbyn and Ashworth’s line that the Tories are ignoring 2m new electors who registered for the referendum, it is equally powerful to argue that we need more MPs; each of them can know their constituents on a closer basis and the Government will be held to account more effectively. Scott also argues that the representative work of 21st Century MP requires far more work than was the case even 40 years ago when the numbers were last revised. Also we can’t allow the hypocrisy of a Tory Government reducing the cost of representative democracy while stuffing the House of Lords full of cronies, mates and donors pass uncommented on.