Boundary Review: The Canibalisation of Camden
Sarah Hayward reckons the Boundary Review proposals in Camden may compromise future elections.
13 Sep 2011, 12:30
Camden Lock
Politically, for Labour the proposals for our local seats look OK - just on a numbers basis. The additions to the Hampstead & Kilburn seat, currently held by Labour's Glenda Jackson on a wafer thin 42 vote majority is made markedly safer by the wards added to it.
The new seat of Camden & Regent's Park taking in predominantly Camden wards with four Westminster wards also looks, on 2010 numbers like a slim Labour hold. But assuming the collapse of Lib Dem support in North London, strongly seen in by-elections, continues to the next general election - a big assumption four years out I know - the seat should become safer for Labour, even with addition of three strong Tory wards from Westminster.
That leaves three wards. Fortune Green in the north of the borough that is proposed to go to a notional Tory seat of Finchley & Golders Green - this, as the boundary commission acknowledges is simply to make up the numbers.
In the south, my ward of King's Cross as well as Holborn & Covent Garden are proposed to move in to The City of London & Islington South constituency. Again these additions to the current Islington South seat look to shore up the Labour majority.
But, and it's a big but, Camden Town Hall - the civic centre of our borough - which is in the ward I represent, King's Cross, will now be in a Parliamentary seat that bears the name of the neighbouring borough. This despite there being a new seat that finally bears the famous moniker of Camden. It may seem like a small point but will surely be confusing for voters particularly between the borough & constituency votes. And even more so, assuming the London Assembly seat - Barnet & Camden, stays the same.
This feeds in to a wider point that Camden borough as an electoral administrator will now have to work with 5 of our 6 neighbouring boroughs to administrate elections. In May 2010 sharing administration with one borough, Brent, created headaches enough. And it's not just me that will say that - the Lib Dem and Tory agents for the Hampstead and Kilburn seat will back me up.
Transferring ballot papers and joint administration of elections could create a series of very expensive administrative nightmares. I don't know whether Camden's situation is at the extreme end in London, but with 38 of the proposed seats crossing borough boundaries it seems unlikely. Administrating elections in this way increases the risk of the process, and therefore the result being compromised. None of the local parties think that happened here in 2010. But if you increase the exposure to the risk it's surely only a matter of time before some aggrieved candidate seeks to resolve the outcome via the courts rather than the ballot box - whether that is in Camden or elsewhere - well we'll have to wait and see.
Comments (2)
Subscribe to this posts's comments feed
Sarah, as a former Tory agent in Camden (when we had 2 neat constituencies that were Camden's and Camden's alone) I agree with what you say but it doesn't get away from the fact that some boroughs were always going to get sliced up and unless someone comes up with an alternative proposal for the whole of North London there's nothing that can be done about it because the Borough simply isn't the right size for one or two constitiuencies. That said, I didn't expect Camden to get carved up quite that bad.
13/09/2011 13:30We almost certainly come at this from different positions. The entire proposal is bonkers and unworkable in the long term. Changing constituency boundaries every election - which is what this means in London is stupid and doesn't serve voters, political parties or paliamentarians.
Now I've got that off my chest - we are where we are. And of course the rigid numerical straight jacket imposed meant constituencies were, by and large not going to be neat but splitting a borough six ways is simply going to be a nightmare. There's no two ways about it.
Not usually one who's given to conspiracy theories I do also wonder what this could mean for the future of Camden at all given a Local Government Boundary review is scheduled for immediately post the 2014 locals.
13/09/2011 14:14