Newspapers said Wednesday that the House of Commons’ vote to delay proposed constituency boundary reforms had, in effect, likely cost the Conservatives the chance of winning the 2015 general election.
Liberal Democrats voted with Labour and other opposition parties to scupper the proposals to change the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies to make the number of voters within them fall within five percent of a national average.
The Commons voted by 334 to 292 to back an amendment which will delay the plans to even out the wide differences between constituencies and reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 until 2018 at the earliest.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives backed the move. They feel the present boundaries are skewed in Labour’s favour and could cost the Tories up to 20 seats — the sort of number they need to have a majority in the Commons.
The Times called the scenes “low politics”.
“How could anyone object… to a proposal to make the number of voters in each seat as equal as possible?” it asked.
“How could someone as devoted to constitutional reform as the Liberal Democrat leader (Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg) have led his party into the lobbies to vote down his coalition partner?
“Labour is against the reform because it will lose seats. The Conservatives are in favour because they will gain some.
“The Liberal Democrats were supportive while they thought they could win other concessions, such as reform of the House of Lords, which would advantage them.”
People believing in “sensible reform to our democracy were so badly let down by MPs yesterday. What a shame.”
The Conservative-supporting Daily Mail savaged Labour and the Liberals for voting against the proposals.
“This was parliament at its most contemptible. In a despicable display of treachery and spite, Lib Dems joined forces with self-serving opposition parties last night to vote against a fundamental principle of democracy,” the tabloid said.
“Didn’t the house’s rejection of fairer constituency boundaries, by a majority of 42, speak volumes about the moral bankruptcy of many of our politicians?
“(Labour leader) Ed Miliband’s crew voted to retain hugely unfair boundaries, 15 years out of date, which mean it can take only half as many votes to elect a Labour MP as a Tory. Indeed, this injustice may cost the Conservatives some 20 seats.”
Clegg and his party “voted to delay fairness until after the election — dealing a possibly fatal blow to David Cameron’s hopes of victory.
“Meanwhile, they hardly bothered even to pretend they had a respectable motive for spitting in democracy’s face.
“This is a bitter blow for the prime minister. For his party to have a fighting chance of winning the next election, he needed these changes.
“His failure to secure them is a huge setback for both Conservatives and a fair democratic process.”
The Guardian’s political editor Patrick Wintour describerd the vote as “severely damaging David Cameron’s chances of winning an overall majority at the next election”.
The Daily Mirror, which supports Labour, told its readers: “Remember January 29, 2013 — it may prove to be the day David Cameron lost the next general election.
“The prime minister’s prospects of gaining outright victory in 2015 worsened considerably yesterday when he failed to sack 50 mainly Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs to engineer a Conservative victory.
“Mr Cameron’s plan smacked of naked self-interest,” it said.
Boundary reform 'likely to cost' Tories 2015 election
