If the boundary changes had gone through the result of GE15 would be less of a cliff-hanger

If the boundary changes had gone through the result of GE15 would be less of a cliff-hanger

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Did old-Etonian Jesse Norman cost his party the election?

On July 11th 2012 David Cameron was seen to be having a furious row with his fellow old-Etonian, Jesse Norman, who had just led the successful backbench revolt against planned House of Lords reform.

Cameron knew very clearly what this meant. The boundary changes, which it was calculated would give the Tories an extra 20 seats over Labour, were almost certainly not going to go through.

Not so long afterwards Nick Clegg confirmed that his party would not vote for the final implementation of the plan thus scuppering something on which the Tories had been placing a lot of hope.

    It had been blindingly obvious that undermining this reform would lead to this outcome yet Mr. Norman had pressed ahead and membership of the upper house continues to be by preferment – as Mr Straw reminded us on TV on Monday night.

Just think how in the current tight political situation what those 20 extra MPs would do to the Tory position?

Mike Smithson

For 11 years viewing politics from OUTSIDE the Westminster bubble


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