Saturday, August 11, 2012
Are the new constituency boundaries dead and buried?
As if to underline our efficacy in vetoing the new constituency boundaries, the Liberal Democrats have let it be known that they will be selecting their candidates to fight the next election on the basis of current Westminster constituencies.
The Independent say that it is now only the Conservative Party that is pressing ahead with plans to select candidates and campaign on the basis of the revised boundaries.
That could present problems for the party if David Cameron loses the vote on the issue when it is debated in the House of Commons late next year or in 2014.
The Liberal Democrats claim that this would disadvantage them: "Ideally in key seats you'd spend the next two years making sure voters had been approached at least once on the doorstep and seen literature promoting our candidates," said one source
"The danger is if you try to do this on the basis of seats that don't even exist – and are unlikely to – you may have a lot of catching up to do at the end."
The Independent say that it is now only the Conservative Party that is pressing ahead with plans to select candidates and campaign on the basis of the revised boundaries.
That could present problems for the party if David Cameron loses the vote on the issue when it is debated in the House of Commons late next year or in 2014.
The Liberal Democrats claim that this would disadvantage them: "Ideally in key seats you'd spend the next two years making sure voters had been approached at least once on the doorstep and seen literature promoting our candidates," said one source
"The danger is if you try to do this on the basis of seats that don't even exist – and are unlikely to – you may have a lot of catching up to do at the end."
