*Why is there such a debate happening when the population has expanded and is set to grow even faster.

*Given this, shouldn’t we have more MPs?

As with Callaghan, Clegg should be ashamed.

You cannot trust the liberal democrats with democracy. They are utterly corrupt.

This bill would have made voting fairer and UN-gerrymandered the UK constituency boundaries.

This is the lib-dems at their most typical. I am so looking forward to the whole lot of them being wiped out at the next election. Liberal Democrats are anti-British, Anti-Democracy and totally corrupt.

Labour vote in Scotland 1,035, 528 – Labour MPs elected 41
Lib Dem votes South East 1,124, 786 – Lib Dem MPs elected 4

Labour vote in Wales 531,601 – Labour MPs elected 26
Lib Dem votes in East England 692,932 – Lib Dem MPs elected 4

Labour vote in the North East 518,261 – Labour MPs elected 25
Lib Dem votes in the West Midlands 540,160 – Lib Dem Mps elected 2

Labour vote in Swansea West 12,335 – Labour MPs elected 1
Lib Dem Vote in East Midlands 462,988 – Lib Dem MPs elected 0

Lib Dem votes in South East, East England, East and West Midlands over 2.8 Million – Lib Dem MPs elected 10

I’m happy for you to express your view, just cant imagine why you waste all our time on a Lid Dem website.

“It will be worth bearing this piece of history in mind over the next few months when we will no doubt be hearing many specious arguments from Labour as to why they are opposing the Voting Reform Bill.”

Your analogical reasoning is flawed and egregious. Lloyd George sold peerages but I don’t blame the present Liberal Democrat party for that! You don’t get it do you? The Tories conflated boundary changes with the proposed referendum on AV in order to MAKE Labour vote AGAINST the bill. I appreciate that this might be news to you but the TORIES don’t actually WANT the Bill! So stop blaming Labour!

Surely the solution is for all those Lib Dem MPs and others who want a referendum on AV to vote in support of Labour’s amendment to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. Whilst affirming Labour’s belief that there should be a referendum on AV, the amendment would deny the bill a second reading. If the bill was denied a second reading, a new bill could come before the House dedicated to treating the AV as a single, discrete issue that was not adulterated by boundary changes. Thus the Tories’ attempts to stifle the Lib Dems aspirations on AV at birth would have been defeated and Labour MPs could vote in favour of a referendum on AV and introduce amendments to include more radical forms of PR. Why don’t you encourage your MPs to go for that?

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/07/electoral-reformers-should-oppose-the-coalitions-gerrymandering/

Various people have talked about splitting the Bill. I completely agree. Labour are desperate to find a way to recommend voting against AV. We should make doing this as difficult as possible for them.

Looking at the in-fighting here, it seems I may be mistaken. No matter how ridiculous a position Labour take, there will be some disaffected Lib Dems (or people pretending to be) who will take it seriously. Astonishing.

Your article is incorrect in stating that only four large constituencies were proposed for division. Misc 253 decided on eight in four pairs (Billericay and South East Essex; Portsmouth Langstone and Gosport and Fareham; Hitchin and South Bedfordshire; Horsham and Arundel and Shoreham) plus six by themselves (Wokingham, Huyton, Harborough, Hornchurch, Hemel Hempstead, Brierley Hill).

The pledge to reduce the number of MPs by 150 was in the 2010 Manifesto too, without any mention of elected regional assemblies. Enthusiasm for ERAs has declined noticeably in recent Policy Papers, although never quite disappearing entirely.

Are you going to acknowledge that your claim that the Liberal Democrats have advocated reducing the number of MPs over several elections, period over and out, is misleading? You have pointed to manifesto commitments without also pointing out that these were accompanied by commitments to establishing regional assemblies. Is this not a rather shoddy sleight of hand on your part?

1st Question: Why are you spending your time defending the Tories? David Cameron has dozens of highly paid PR men to fight his party’s corner. Why are you doing it?

2nd Question: Why don’t you use just a little of your energy promoting Liberal Democrat policies and values – rather than Tory ones?

3rd Question: Don’t you look yourself in the mirror once in a while and wonder why you are doing this?

You don’t get it. It is not that you are attacking Labour- you are an opposing party, that’s fine. It’s that your party is using it as an excuse for backing harmful governance, they’re using it as an excuse to promote policies that they don’t *have* to support yet can’t defend on merit.

Generally I am astonished by people here (and elsewhere on LDV) who think we should not be attacking Labour. They intend to spend the next 5 years attacking us and lying about us. They have no scruples whatsoever and at the very least we need to be absolutely vigilant in flagging up their lies and hypocrisy.