Thank the good Lord that's over. No more obsessing about boundary reform. In the end, the ship went down by 42 votes - bigger majority than anyone expected. We did waste such an enormous amount of Parliamentary time chasing a prize that turned out to be dud. Now we must get on with governing the country and showing the people of Britain why they should vote Conservative at the next election. All the wasted effort going after those extra 20 seats (which I never believed anyway). What we should do is make sure we govern well, engage with the people and we can win the election anyway. We had a 13% plus swing in Montgomeryshire last time round. Its more than possible.
Despite the vote going the way I wanted it to, I don't feel at all joyous. Its a bad feeling, not to have supported the Gov't (if that's the right description without the Lib Dems). First time I'd done that. Like many a ex-virgin who has recently achieved the status, I do ask myself if I did the right thing. I simply couldn't vote because I was faced with two alternatives both unacceptable to me. Firstly we had a Boundary Commission proposal which would cause so much damage to Parliamentary democracy in mid Wales. And the second alternative on offer was the utterly disgraceful amendment from the House of Lords which killed off the reform. Their Lordships were told their amendment was out of order before they passed it, but they went ahead anyway. I just could not bring myself to vote for such a constitutional abomination.
Perhaps the biggest burden my conscience has to carry is that I know the Gov't proposals would have dealt with the gross unfairness inherent in the current distribution of seats and boundaries. No doubt that the Conservatives lose out. If only there had been a bit more flexibility in the system, which would have enabled the Boundary Commission to deal with the biggest anomalies. But its too late now. Time to move on, and focus on the 2015 winning post. Contrary to current odds, I think we'll win.
2 comments:
Just to clarify, you did actually vote against the government but stayed out of the lobby. Is that correct?
I'm with the Chartists on this one Glyn. In a representative democracy equal representation for each voter means equal constituencies I'm afraid. The days of Old Sarum should have ended in 1832. It is totally undemocratic to support a system where one MP represents 100,000 voters and another just over 40000. Wales is overrepresented even without devolution. This week's vote was a bad day for democracy I'm afraid even it meant that certain individuals can now look forward to another few years 'busy doing nothing working the whole day through' in London.
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