Labour’s Plans to Gerrymander the next election
Labour MPs are apparently calling on the law to be changed to limit spending between elections. This is because those in marginal seats believe the Conservative Party are spending too much money in marginal seats and this will cost them their places.
If this argument was somehow objective, you might be able to give it some credence. But of course it’s not. What Labour MPs are really saying is “we already enjoy a massive advantage, please can we have yet further help”.
Consider how the balance of power is balanced between an incumbent Labour MP and his opponent:
- the incumbent is full-time, the opponent normally has a job and can only fit in campaigning as and when
- the incumbent has just voted himself an annual £10,000 communications allowance which he can use to promote himself
- the incumbent deals with hundreds, if not thousands of constituents every year
- the incumbent receives money from trades unions, and his party receives millions from them at election time. Often the unions will be running advertising campaigns during the election to complement his party’s campaign
- the incumbent is a member of a party that received fewer votes in England than the Conservatives but still got 93 more seats.
And they feel hard done by…
Sam Pepys said on October 15th, 2007 at 4:53 pm:
It is alleged that Labour’s Union money comes from the Tax payer via the DTI. Conservative hero James Cleverly has the details of this on a post today: http://jamescleverly.blogspot.com/
I guess Ed might not be able to comment (a wee bit too controversial). I’m pretty convinced though.
Marquee Mark said on October 15th, 2007 at 6:17 pm:
There is something distinctly amiss with the system when the Tories need 7% or so more of the popular vote than Labour to get a majority. There needs to be a major overhaul. Personally - we have far too many politicians. We should have larger constituencies and fewer MP’s. The US has 300+ million people and staffs TWO houses with 535 Senators and Congressmen. We have a sixth of their population yet need 650 on the new boundaries - and that is just for the House of Commons.
If we had say just 200 MP’s, they would, ironically, have a chance of being better known than the 650 - which, let’s face it includes masses of Lobby-fodder on both sides. With fewer but larger seats would be much easier to get a numerical balance when drawing the boundaries. The Euro-constituencies are too big, but show how the Labour bias can be eroded.
Or perhaps we will have to reserve this proposal for the English Parliament?!?
floating voter said on October 16th, 2007 at 10:44 am:
what about tory incumbents? they get the same money as labour mps AND the ashcroft money.
ashcroft is buying british democracy.