Paying any attention to a speech by Nick Clegg is probably the acme of futility. But I was struck by something he said yesterday, and it may be worth two minutes of your time too. Amidst a long list of things the Lib Dems in Coalition were pleased to have stopped the Tories doing, Clegg told the Party Conference that he had said, "No to the boundary changes if you cannot deliver your side of the bargain on House of Lords reform".
It's worth just considering what that bargain was. Para 6 of the Coalition agreement states, "The parties will bring forward a referendum bill on electoral reform, which includes provision for the introduction of the alternative vote in the event of a positive result in the referendum, as well as for the creation of fewer and more equal sized constituencies". This refers to boundary changes, which I'll come to in a moment. "Both parties will whip their parliamentary parties in both houses to support a simple majority referendum on the alternative vote, without prejudice to the positions parties will take during such a referendum."
A couple of paragraphs further on there was also a commitment on House of Lords reform. "We agree to establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation . . "
What happened to these pledges? The Tories delivered on their promise to hold an AV referendum. To the Lib Dems chagrin, the public overwhelmingly rejected AV.
The Tory leadership delivered on their promise to establish a committee to devise proposals for an elected House of Lords. In fact they went further. The Government put forward a bill which was debated in the Commons last summer. Unfortunately for the Lib Dems, over 90 Tory backbenchers rebelled against the Government, despite a three line whip, thus denying the bill a second reading.
It's worth pointing out at this stage that if Labour had voted for the bill it would have been passed. Someone I respect told me the other day that Ed Miliband was a man of principle. Pshaw.
In January 2013 the Lib Dems - including Lib Dem Government ministers - voted against the Boundary Change bill, thus ensuring its defeat.
Now politics is a dirty business, and it may be that expecting the Lib Dems to honour their pledges is naive. But the Tories did exactly what they said they would do, and the Lib Dems didn't. That the AV referendum and boundary changes were linked is made explicit by their inclusion in the same paragraph of the agreement and their inclusion in the same parliamentary bill. But even if you don't agree with that - and reading this stuff with a lawyer's eye does make one rather despair at the amateurish drafting - what exactly was it that Clegg boasted yesterday he had blocked?
Well actually it was a proposal by the Boundary Commission to reduce the numbers of MPs by about 50. The Boundary Commission is independent of government, and its job is to try and keep constituencies approximately the same size in population terms. Because populations are constantly shifting, this isn't as easy as it sounds. This is what the BBC website says about the current system - "At present, more votes tend to be needed to elect a Conservative MP than to elect a Labour MP". If the BBC says so, it must be true. It is reckoned to have cost the Tories about 20 seats at the last election. Under the 2013 Boundary review proposals - which the Government does not have power to amend - this anomaly would have been rectified. There would have been fewer constituencies in the North, for one thing, where Labour tends to do better.
Curiously, the unfairness of the present system seems to be widely acknowledged, even at the Guardian, but no-one seems to mind very much. When the balance of support for the major parties is so finely balanced, even to the extent that it could decide the next Election, the postponement of the 2013 review to 2018 was a momentous political event that even the Tories seem to have shrugged off.
In August 2010 a Government minister put the case for change very well in Parliament. "Up and down the country, constituencies can vary enormously in size, and that's a major cause for concern . . . For example 87,000 voters in the East Ham constituency together get one say in the government. The 66,000 voters living 10 miles away in Islington North get one say too. So, if you live in Islington, your voice counts for more. . . Redrawing the boundaries lets us make constituencies more equal in size and more current, and it's an opportunity to cut the number of MPs. . . It is one of the founding principles of any democracy that votes should be valued in the same way, wherever they are cast. Over the years, all sorts of anomalies have developed, such that different people's votes are simply not worth the same in election to this place. That surely cannot be right".
You will be way ahead of me. The speaker was Nick Clegg. That's the same Nick Clegg boasting yesterday about having stopped the changes he was arguing in favour of only three years ago.
The same Nick Clegg whose Sheffield Hallam constituency would have disappeared if the Boundary Commission changes had taken place.
