Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Tango Man cries fowl

If I were wanting someone to argue my case on moral grounds, then the Tango-Man would be the last of a very bad bunch I'd choose:
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.

"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."
Special protection for what?
WELSH MPs are demanding extra parliamentary time to debate a proposed cut in their numbers, amid growing claims that Wales is being unfairly treated.

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.
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:
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:

Dilettante said...

Constituency sizes should surely be equal on principle, even setting aside the fact that Wales as devolution (it nearly didn't, so close...)