The political impact of Parliamentary boundary changes

Yesterday Sara highlighted the Newsnight report into the political impact of reducing the number of Parliamentary constituencies. Democratic Audit have kindly provided me with a copy of its research which was used for the BBC headlines about how the Liberal Democrats were likely to lose out disproportionately.

You can read their report in full below, but it’s worth highlighting the significant caveats that Democratic Audit itself puts on the results: “While it is possible to draw conclusions about how the proposals could impact on party representation, these findings must be regarded as purely indicative … It is very difficult to produce precise estimates of the likely partisan impact of these changes”. They describe their political projections as, “a rough estimate of the likely impact”.

Moreover, their calculations are based on making very little allowance for how parties will change their campaigning in response to changing boundaries. So ready a fair few pinches of salt and read on…