Cynical Gerrymandering

I don't normally comment on national issues like the proposed Alternative Vote (AV) referendum, but I can't help but remark the incredible cycnicism of the Con Dem coalition. Supposedly, this coalition is part of a new politics, but instead they have stitched up a deal that is nakedly for partisan advantage.

The Lib Dems are hoping for an Alternative Vote system, despite having rejected it in the past, because they hope for more seats. To get it they are abandoning the whole Boundary Review system that, whatever the bureaucracy, has been depoliticised. Whereas previously, boundaries were subject to a public enquiry with a non-party commissioner making the decision, the Con Dems are going to allow every constituency in the country to be radically redrawn by government ministers with no checks or appeal mechanisms. It is an outrageous party political land grab, the biggest piece of ballot rigging since the days of rotten boroughs.

Anyone who thinks it a good idea should look at California and other American states. Almost all American states allow constituency boundaries to be drawn up by state legislatures, i.e. politicians. Of course, the politicians draw the boundaries to favour their own party and judicial review seems inadequate to stop them from creating utterly bizarre boundaries.

Whereas Clegg has argued that electoral reform will do away with safe seats and thereby put MPs on their mettle, allowing him and his Tory colleagues to fix the boundaries will have the opposite effect. Each constituency will be drawn up to maximise the chances of a Tory or Lib Dem being elected, creating more safe seats. In California, that has created a complacent Democratic majority and an increasingly extreme Republican minority. In such safe seats the incumbents need only to appeal to their own base, and get punished if they fail to. There is no incentive to find common ground between the parties, and thus California has an heroically disfunctional government.

That is the future that the Lib Dems and Tories are preparing for Britain.