Shadow Welsh Secretary Peter Hain pointed out that exemptions were already in place for Northern Ireland, and large rural seats in Scotland – currently held by the Liberal Democrats – would also be unaffected.Special protection for what?
"Northern Ireland has special protection for its own interests, I don’t quarrel with that," said Mr Hain. "Scotland has got – well, the Liberal Democrats are protecting their own seats. But Wales has no special protection."
WELSH MPs are demanding extra parliamentary time to debate a proposed cut in their numbers, amid growing claims that Wales is being unfairly treated.Ah, not so much turkeys arguing about the ethics of battery farming, more the traditional case them of not being so happy about a pre-Xmas culling:
The Government wants to reduce the total number of MPs and create new constituencies of roughly equal numbers of voters, leaving Wales facing a reduction in representation from 40 to 30.
Mr Hain said: "I don’t have a problem about equalisation as a principle, that’s always more or less applied."Er...no, it hasn't:
In England the average constituency has 71,500 voters, compared to 65,500 in Scotland and 56,500 in Wales.The smallest Welsh constituency, Arfon has 42,998 voters, and even the largest one, the Vale of Glamorgan, has only 68,229; surely there is a smidgeon of a discrepancy to be addressed there? Tango Man begs to differ:
I don’t think 40 MPs is too many, and we will be fighting to keep the existing total What I have a problem with is the double-whammy of a reduction in the number of MPs by a quarter.Curiously enough the main argument that could have been employed against the reduction was left well, well alone by Hain- if the Welsh vote against delivering more powers to their Assembly and lose a quarter of their MPs near enough at the same time, that surely would clobber Wales with a double whammy?
Mr Hain, your thoughts on that?
The point is that, yes, it is damaging to Labour but...OK.
1 comment:
Constituency sizes should surely be equal on principle, even setting aside the fact that Wales as devolution (it nearly didn't, so close...)
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