“The United Kingdom now has FOUR parliaments and is subject to a pan-European one! The case for a smaller number of MP's is therefore overwhelming, as is the case for rationalising constituency size and for debarring Scottish, Welsh and Irish members from domestic English matters, for which they have jurisdiction in their own provinces. As far as possible however, constituences should respect historic the traditional administrative City and county boundaries. Of course this would have political consequences for the Labour Party, strongly represented in Scotland and Wales but as they have initiated the changes they can hardly complain. The UK parliament would retain a certain degree of oversight and responsibility and for foreign affairs, defence, the economy and the other retained functions but, as with the recent Libyan issue, devolution is not without its international repercussions.”

“Anything Andrew George supports will only benefit one person.

And that is Andrew George.

I thought I was the only person who realised his is MK in Lib Dems clothing.

It appears I am not alone.”

“I can't see it will make any difference but a reduction in the number of MPs is a good thing. What would help would be if MPs voted according to the wishes of their constituents even when it goes against the party line. The Whip should be abolished as it is no longer relevant.”

“This reforendum is a product of the coalition.

The Tories want to reduce the number of seats but the Lib Dems would only agree if the reduction was only 50 and Lib Dem seats with small electorates in the Highland and Islands were exempt form the Standardisation of Electorate Rules.

The Lib Dems wanted STV but the Tories would only consent to an AV reforendum.

The two issues AV and a reduction in the Commons size are then linked into one reforendum. Why?

Easy with only 600 mps the Lib Dems lose seats of FPTV but think they regain there loses if the election is held on AV. The Tories meanwhile believe the standardisation of seats regardless to actual populations will benefit them sufficiantly that at least Cameron is prepared to accept some loses under AV to the Lib Dems.

So what about the ordinary citizen. Well Cornwall is only one example. All county bounaries will be irrelavent as will all natural community bounaries only a reigid number of c77000 electors will count in the proposed rules. The reasons constituencies have caried in size has been to ensure they represent real communities. Excepting a couple of North Wales Sea, the Islands of Scotland and the Isle of Wight Seat vary from 56,000 to 82,000. These variations are partially because the electorate figures the last review was based on was Dec 2000 nearly ten years old.

What we need is not standardisation on a rigid basis but fresh reviews every 5 years within the existing rules. This would prevent electorates varying so dramitcally as more recent regular data was used while allowing a more lienient varyation in constituencies to reflect real community boundaries and identities including the Cornish border.

As with all constitutional changes havoc is played if created ad hoc for narrow party politcal purposes in this case welding together a coalition. Let us hope the House of Lords does its job and takes this bill apart and amends it clause by clause on a cross party basis.

It is however very rich that both Tory and Lb Dem Cornish MPs oppose the equalisation proposal in there own governments bill. Will they all be voting with Labour against the bill or putting ammendment down/supporting Labour ammendments?”

“By way of contrast and amusement, before 1822 Cornwall returned 44 MP's of 658 - more than the whole of Scotland! most of these came from about 17 so-called "Rotten Boroughs". (21 in total plus 2 county Members) The population of the UK at the time was about 21 million including Ireland.

By the 18th century, few if any of the Cornish boroughs had competitive political elections in modern sense: competition, where it occurred at all, was on the basis of personal influence or pecuniary advantage promised and delivered.

Sir Lewis Namier, who in his classic analysis of the structure of British politics in 1760, took the Cornish boroughs as one his case studies, called it "an elaborate and quaint machinery for making Members of Parliament, in which irrelevancy reached its acme... there was no humbug about the way in which Cornish boroughs chose their representatives.".

This he expounded by quoting Thomas Pitt, writing in 1740, who considered that "...there are few [Cornish] boroughs where the common sort of people do not think they have as much right to sell themselves and their votes, as they have tio sell their corn and their cattle." (Source Wikipedia)

This may explain why at this time Cornwall "punched above it's weight". Oh the Good Old Days! (Joking of course!)”