Bounding into the Future with New Boundaries

A few fellow bloggers (step forward Marco at "Adam Smith Was a Socialist") have been getting excited by the review of Scottish Parliamentary constituencies that is being undertaken at the moment. The Boundary Commission for Scotland today published their initial proposals.

This gets those of us involved in politics quite exercised as we pour over the potential new boundaries and imagine how they might affect the political landscape.

Many of the new proposed constituencies strike me as a little bizarre. Many straddle local authority boundaries with little regard to historic community links, and surely when the final boundaries are settled upon the suggested Clydebank and North Renfrewshire seat which is bisected by the Clyde will be reshuffled off the map. However, the difficulty facing the Boundary Commission is trying to ensure a degree of equal apportioning of electorate to the constituencies for the Scottish Parliament (Orkney and Shetland excepted by statute, and the Western Isles by practical necessity) and I suppose we will just have to get our heads round the newly named seats and say goodbye to some long established names (although again, I am sure that come the final recommendations they will be more imaginative in Glasgow rather than just using compass points to name the seats).

The effect of the redrawn boundaries on the political landscape has drawn much comment, as I have mentioned. Less commented upon though has been the impact of the years between now and 2011, when the new boundaries come into effect.

Regardless of the boundaries we face it is what we do on the ground and how we try to affect change that truly matters. In that regard I have to say it is with some confidence that the SNP will be able to go into the 2011 election - no matter the boundaries presented.