The Boundary Commission for England reported overnight and published their proposals for change in the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries. The rules given were to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600, to equalise the Constituency sizes, except for the Islands and to work from a new electoral register based on individual registration. The impact is well summarised on on various sites. In England, it is expected that Labour will lose over twice as many seats as the Tories.
The Labour attack line has been to argue that the the Boundaries commission datum line fails to take account of the 2m new voters registered since Xmas to vote in the referendum. This is important, as is the argument that Constituencies should be sized to take account of the population, not merely of voters, although an additional member (proportional) system would equalise the worth of votes and maintain a constituency link. Labour and others have pointed out the hypocrisy of reducing the number of elected MPs allegedly to cut the cost of politics while stuffing the House of Lords with cronies, apparatchiks & fund raisers. Few have argued that the House of Commons would benefit from smaller constituencies since voters and represepentatives could get to know each other in a way that rarely happens today.
I do, and the inequity in this so called reform starts from the plan to reduce the size of the House of Commons.