A biased system
From John Maloney Sir: Your editorial of 21 May says the Tories must fight street by street with the Boundaries Commission to eliminate Labour’s rotten boroughs. I’m sure they are already doing so. But in the end the commissioners work on the basis of an ageing census, and are not allowed to take account of differential turnout in Labour and Conservative seats. The likely outcome, whatever the Tories do, is that they will need a 7:6 vote ratio, as against Labour, to get the same number of seats. If third parties stay where they are, this would mean an 11 per cent lead to get an overall majority, and indeed a small lead to stop Labour getting one. In other words, the new boundaries will negligibly reduce the present bias in the system.
Like many Conservatives, I regard this with utter dismay. If Conservative Central Office thinks I’m being too pessimistic, let us hear from them. I would be only too glad to be proved wrong.
John Maloney
School of Business and Economics, University of Exeter
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