Cameron warned of long fight against ‘arbitrary, unworkable, brutal’ proposals David Cameron is being warned by his whips he faces two years of trench warfare as Tory MPs harden their opposition to proposals to shrink the House of Commons from 650 to 600 seats. As Vince Cable became the first cabinet member to voice concerns about the changes, which will radically alter his Twickenham constituency, Tories warned the party leadership they may not be able to support the changes which will have to be approved by parliament in 2013. “These changes are much more radical than anyone had expected,” one loyalist MP said of the proposals published on Tuesday by the Boundary Commission for England. England is to lose 31 seats. Another Tory said: “Unease about the recommendations is spreading.” Cable echoed those concerns. The business secretary, who could face a battle with the Tory MP Zac Goldsmith in the new seat of Richmond and Twickenham, told the London Evening Standard: “In order to get the right size of constituency, no account has been taken not just of borough boundaries, but any sense of identity.” The deep unease among Lib Dems prompted senior Tories to tell their coalition partners they are bound by the coalition agreement to support the changes. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said: “What do I say to those within the coalition parties who don’t like it? Well, this is what we agreed to do. “It would be unprecedented for the orders changing the boundaries to be voted down. The legislation was voted through by parliament and it would be eccentric indeed to reject the results.” But Tory whips are warning ministers of similar anger among their own MPs. One Tory MP said: “You get the feeling that the Boundary Commission thought the government’s idea to equalise the size of constituencies was poo and so it has drawn up ideas that are completely unworkable. The central flaw is that many of the new constituencies have no central focus.” The unease is shared by Labour MPs. One member of the shadow cabinet said: “This is like the partition of India. Somebody has sat down in a room in London and drawn arbitrary lines through communities they know nothing about.” The changes to the Leigh constituency of the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, are being held up as an example of the main flaw. The name of the constituency survives but it does not include Leigh civic centre, the town’s library or its parish church. The old constituency has been hived off into three new constituencies – a redrawn Leigh, Makerfield and Westhoughton. Burnham, who is launching a Keep Leigh in Leigh campaign, said: “It is utterly random. Leigh has been paired with places that have nothing to do with it. This shows the sheer brutal process. We talk a great deal about restoring trust in parliament. But how can we do that if we have constituencies that have no linking heart?” Chris Bryant, the shadow constitutional reform minister, said: “Many of the initial proposals for new constituencies reflect the flawed legislation which brought them into being. There has been pointless disruption in some regions, leading to the unnecessary division of traditional communities and making MPs more remote from the communities they serve, not closer. The task now is to inject some common sense back into many of these recommendations.” Andy Sawford, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit said: “The proposed changes will mean that parliamentary constituencies cross more council boundaries and this will make democratic representation more complicated and confusing in some areas, not just for elected representatives, but also for the voters. “There is often a strong sense of identity, arising from history and logical geographic boundaries in many constituencies, and voters might well be confused by some of the proposed new arrangements, which stretch local links. Factor in other new developments such as elected police commissioners and it makes it even harder for citizens to know who represents them, where and for what purpose.” Under the changes, which the government said would save £12m, a constituency must have an electorate no smaller than 72,810 and no larger than 80,473. There will be a few exemptions, including splitting the Isle of Wight into two constituencies of around 50,000 voters. Boundary changes Electoral reform Liberal-Conservative coalition Nicholas Watt Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …President Obama sent his proposed jobs legislation to Congress today and as promised, it is fully paid for. From Monday’s press briefing with Jay Carney and White House Budget Director Jack Lew: This is a standalone bill. It has the investments in growth and jobs, and it has some provisions that pay for it. By raising the target of the joint committee what we’re saying is Congress should pass the jobs bill now with the pay-fors, and when the joint committee reaches its decisions later in the fall, it can then either put in new offsets to pay for it, and that would trigger the pay-fors in the bill off, or it can do the original target of $1.5 trillion and then the pay-fors that are in the jobs bill will stand. So how does that work, exactly? Well, the White House is calling for them to “pass this bill right now.” They sent the bill to Congress. The bill has all of the jobs provisions he outlined in his speech last Thursday, along with two different pathways to pay for it. The first one is to increase the supercommittee targets. The second is to propose specific pay-fors which will trigger if the supercommittee does not meet the targets. Those are, according to Lew, the following: First there’s a limit on itemized deductions and certain exemptions for individuals who earn over $200,000, and families earning over $250,000. That limitation raises roughly $400 billion over 10 years. There is a provision that would treat carried interest — that’s the interest earned by investment fund managers — as ordinary income, rather than taxing it at the capital gains rate. And that would raise $18 billion. There are a number of oil and gas provisions, which, collectively, raise $40 billion. That would — with the enactment of these provisions, would treat the oil and gas industry like other industries, taking away the special preference. And finally, the corporate jet depreciation rule is changed. Right now corporate jets are depreciated over five years; commercial over seven. It would treat commercial and corporate jets the same, at five years. That raises $3 billion. In the aggregate, these provisions actually raise $467 billion. It intentionally overachieves because these are based on our estimates internally. When the Congress estimates tax provisions, and we estimate tax provisions, they rarely are pinpoint-accurate to the same number. Sometimes they’re higher; sometimes they’re lower. And it just built in a cushion so that as we go through the process of having the scoring done on the Hill, we’ve built in a cushion for the differences that happen. But we do believe we’ve overachieved, which would leave a bit of excess. I don’t know if this bill will pass in any form. There’s a systemic problem in the House of Representatives that may kill it. But we have an opportunity here. This bill, with few exceptions, is a progressive model for moving forward. It doesn’t touch Medicare or Social Security. It pays for tax preferences and other expenditures with tax hikes on the rich. These are all ideas that an overwhelming majority of people in this country support , regardless of party. However, Republicans are showing weakness. The conciliatory tone taken after the jobs speech was uncharacteristic, even if it’s most likely an act. After three years of just saying no, they’re suddenly all teary-eyed over bipartisanship . Awwww. That new love of bipartisanship wouldn’t have anything to do with their drop in the polls and hostile town hall meetings over the summer, would it? Yet, their professed new love of bipartisan action hasn’t swayed the White House this time around. The President responded to those calls for compromise, love and bipartisanship by saying they should pass the whole bill, right now. Jay Carney repeated that theme in his press conference today: I’m going to — before I go straight to questions, I’m going to respond to a couple of things here. Tricia, on yours, the President believes the United States Congress should, upon receiving the American Jobs Act, pass it. He is submitting a bill that, by the estimate of any economist on the outside whose PhD is worth the value of the paper it’s printed on, would say creates jobs and grows the economy by incentivizing the private sector, by putting more money in Americans’ pockets, by putting teachers back to work, putting construction workers back to work, police and firefighters. And he believes the American Jobs Act should be passed by Congress. There’s only one way I see for this battle to be won. It’s going to be up to all of us to be out in the street (with correctly spelled signs, please) calling for the bill to be passed right now, as it is. Even then, it’s doubtful it will pass, but it will at least draw a sharp distinction between who is acting on behalf of the people and who is acting on behalf of the wealthy people and corporate interests. Ezra Klein sees it this way: The GOP might be working to showcase a more conciliatory tone in public, but that new tone does not mean they’re willing to talk taxes. Michael Steel, spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, e-mailed a quick, and negative, reaction to the White House’s announcement: “This tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past. We remain eager to work together on ways to support job growth, but this proposal doesn’t appear to have been offered in that bipartisan spirit.” But perhaps the point of the proposals isn’t to attract GOP support that, in all likelihood, will never come. Perhaps the point is to force the GOP to make a difficult choice: either come back with offsets the White House can accept in place of these policies, or try to explain why keeping taxes low on the rich is more important than helping the jobless. All in all, these pay-fors make me less optimistic that much of the jobs package will pass, though my guess is they will make a lot of liberals more optimistic that the White House is finally willing to wage a public campaign on behalf of its policy ideas. Jobs are a universal concern right now. From CEOs to factory workers, jobs are evaporating with nothing to replace them. The President has proposed a good first step. I understand the Progressive Caucus plans to announce augmented proposals to his, which I will be writing on when they are released. As I understand it, they will layer even more opportunities for jobs onto the AJA in a complimentary fashion. Without pressure on these stubborn, selfish Republicans to step up for the people they represent, they’ll think it’s perfectly fine to behave just as they have so far and cater to their corporate overlords. It’s time they heard some other voices in their districts, in their states, and across the country. I like the White House’s approach on this. It would seem they’re listening to progressives more carefully. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have concerns about the separate deficit reduction package they’re sending next week, but this bill, as proposed, would be good for the country and a step toward an improving economy.
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WASHINGTON — In a sharp challenge to the GOP, on Monday proposed paying for his costly new jobs plan with tax hikes that have already rejected, and he accused them of political motives if they still refuse to go along. “The only thing that’s stopping it is politics,” Obama said. The president’s proposal drew criticism from House Speaker (R-), who’d previously responded in cautious but somewhat receptive tones to the $447-billion jobs plan made up of tax cuts and new spending Obama first proposed in an address to Congress on Thursday. “It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past. We remain eager to work together on…
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Click here to view this media Republican state Rep. Dale Folwell, who is co-sponsoring an effort to make marriage discrimination a part of North Carolina’s state constitution, asserted Monday that without the constitutional amendment, LGBT people would actually be at a risk of losing rights. To back up his argument, Folwell cited a decision by the Univ. of Rochester requiring domestic partners to get married to continue receiving health care benefits after New York legalized same sex marriage. “I’ve met with the opposition,” Folwell said during a House Rules Committee debate. “And like in every bill that I’ve ever worked on, when I meet with with the opposition, I learn something. Recently I met with the professor over at — [ Dr. Maxine Eichner ] from UNC Chapel Hill — and I asked this question… Is it possible that if we don’t bring certainty to this issue in North Carolina — give people an opportunity to vote on it — is it possible that people that she advocates for can actually lose rights?” “What we just learned after I asked that question, today or last week the University of Rochester, a private institution in New York that previously gave health care rights to same sex couples, are now rescinding those rights by saying that if you want to receive health care benefits then you have to get married. So, that’s a right that was taken away from a private institution because of laws being uncertain.” Since North Carolina is banning same sex marriage instead of legalizing it, many may question the logic of Folwell’s claim. The Rules Committee subsequently gave the bill a favorable report, sending it to the House floor. The full House could vote on the measure as soon as Monday afternoon.
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Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller says dialogue with terror groups, including al-Qaida, requires courage but ‘is necessary’ The former head of MI5, Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller, has delivered an impassioned defence of talking to terrorists, even to elements of al-Qaida. “Dialogue, even with terrorists, is necessary”, she told an invited audience at the recording of her third and final BBC Reith lecture, on the theme Securing Freedom, in the British Library in central London. “Talking doesn’t mean approval”, she said. “It’s a way of exploring peaceful options, what compromises, if any, can be reached”. She added it required courage by governments. She continued: “Not all terrorist are evil, though their acts are”. There were people in al-Qaida who were tired of terror and already prepared to help the west. She said she was not suggesting “rushing off to do it tomorrow” but to consider which “components” of al-Qaida western interests could speak to. She has already provoked some of her former political masters in Tony Blair’s government by attacking the invasion of Iraq and decrying the term “war on terror”, in her earlier Reith lectures. On Monday, she went further, saying it was important “to try and reduce terrorism by talking to its advocates”. It was important, she said, to keep a “rational perspective” about the risks of terrorism. Politicians “lose their way” if they become too apprehensive about how the media would respond to terrorist attacks, she said. Attacking the many anti-terrorist laws passed by the Labour government, she spoke of “unnecessary” and “unproductive” measures. “The rush to legislation after an atrocity is often a mistake.” British governments, she said, had talked to the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. She said she would not exclude talking now to dissident Republican groups there. Asked after her lecture whether the west should talk to Hamas, the militant group governing Gaza, she replied: “I believe talks are going on. I’m not going to say more than that”. She described the use of intelligence agencies in “deniable” operations as “quite useful”. MI6 carried out back-channel talks with the IRA under the Thatcher government though it is unclear exactly what ministers knew about them. It is also unclear what ministers knew about MI6 involvement in “rendering” Libyan dissidents and terror suspects to Muammar Gaddafi’s security forces in 2003. There is a question, Manningham-Buller, who was head of MI5 at the time, said “whether the UK supped with a sufficiently long spoon”. She made it clear in an earlier Reith lecture that, in her view, the activities of MI6 were wrong. She is expected to give evidence to the Gibson inquiry into allegations of British collusion in the torture and the abuse of detainees. Her lecture, the third on the theme, Securing Freedom, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 20 September. UK security and terrorism Global terrorism Terrorism policy al-Qaida MI5 MI6 IRA Hamas Palestinian territories Labour Libya Middle East Africa Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Lib Dems’ fugitive donor named his dog Charles (Kennedy) as a bitter joke
September 12, 2011 No Comment
Convicted fraudster Michael Brown traced to Caribbean while his multiple identities raise questions for UK officials Waiters in the hotels along Punta Cana beach, a curve of white sand on the easternmost tip of the Dominican Republic, say the Scottish man in bermuda shorts is known as the owner of Charlie, a rottweiler-alsatian cross which is usually by his side. The pair have been seen in the Caribbean surf where Charlie liked to gnaw at discarded coconut shells. Last month, they were spotted in a gold Porsche Cayenne 4×4 as it bounced along the potholed roads to an exclusive golf course. But the dog’s owner, the Liberal Democrats’ fugitive donor Michael Brown, could not let the opportunity pass for a bitter joke at the expense of the party he once bankrolled. A former business associate claims Brown’s pet is named after Charles Kennedy, the ex-leader of the Liberal Democrats who accepted his gift. “He told me that he had given money to a political party and that his puppy was named after the leader. He thought it was funny,” said the one-time friend. Today the Guardian can reveal that fraudulently acquired legal documents enabled Brown to escape justice and begin a new life in the Caribbean. Brown, who gave the Lib Dems £2.4m of stolen money before being convicted of theft in his absence, duped the British authorities into giving him a passport under the name of Darren Patrick Nally in June 2008. At the time he was on bail in connection with a £60m fraud. The passport allowed him to leave Britain for a new, anonymous life in the Dominican Republic. Flitting between at least three properties nestled on white sand beaches and manicured golf courses, he applied for temporary residency and even enrolled on the country’s electoral register. Disclosure of the false passport raises serious questions for the Identity and Passport Service. At the time, images of Brown had featured in dozens of news articles and television programmes because of his sizeable gift to a political party. He already had a conviction from 2006 for obtaining a passport by deception. His fake passport enabled him to acquire the false Dominican documents. It is understood that police are investigating claims that he has acquired other British passports under stolen identities. The documents also show how Brown has changed his appearance while at the top of the City of London police’s most wanted list and on Crimestoppers’ most wanted list. While on the run, Brown was convicted and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for the theft of £8m, although the court was told he had stolen around £60m. Despite a court ruling that found that Brown’s donor firm 5th Avenue Partners was wholly fraudulent, Nick Clegg has refused to return the money that came from it. The Lib Dems have claimed that it was accepted in good faith. In his passport photograph, applied for in June 2008, Brown has grown a beard and his temples have gone grey. He had previously been clean-shaven and used to dye his hair strawberry blond. He may have been attempting to look a little older. Brown was then aged 42, while the real owner of his new identity was 47. Brown persuaded a judge that he was not a flight risk and should no longer have to wear an electronic tag. Living under strict bail conditions in Hampstead, north London, he had been forced to hand over his real passport and was expected to check in with police twice a week. In fact Brown had gone to great lengths to acquire a number of documents bearing false names while awaiting trial. He used the name Michael Brown when his local council registered him in August 2007, but in September he returned a document to Camden electoral services stating that his surname should be registered as Campbell-Brown. He used this name to set up bank accounts with Capital One and NatWest at a time when his assets were frozen by a court order. The Dominican documents show that by February 2010, he was sporting a deeper tan. Government officials said Brown’s false British passport would have been one of two documents he used to apply for permission to live in the country. His temporary residency card appears to show that Brown’s adopted identity of Nally is Irish. Brown was in fact born in Scotland and is a UK citizen. Brown’s electoral identity card was registered at Sea Horse Ranch, an exclusive resort in the north of the country where he lived in an £882,000 villa protected by armed security guards. He is said to have lived there for several months at least. Two men suspected of helping him flee Britain and adopt a false identity were arrested and questioned on Friday. The former friend, who says he lost hundred of thousands of dollars in a venture with Brown under his assumed name of Nally, said Brown was angered about the lack of support he had been given by politicians. “Darren gave them money, and they did not look after him,” he said. Marta Palomo, an estate agent who rents a four-bedroom house to Brown in a guarded estate a few hundred metres from the sea, said that she saw him two weeks ago. “I saw him in the house, and have spoken to him in the last week. He is busy, spends a lot of time in the capital city. He has had a place here for years,” she said. “He lives with his dog and a maid comes by and sometimes his wife comes over to visit,” she said. Brown’s wife Sharon Campbell lives in Mallorca. Brown told Palomo last week that he would be going away for a short time because a friend has been in hospital, she said. “I think he is out at the moment because his friend is ill, he has gone to see him in hospital. But I am sure he will be back,” she said. Manuel Angella, a local taxi driver who has driven Brown to the capital city of Santo Domingo, said: “Darren is a very good man. There are many worse people in this world,” he said. City of London police are negotiating to secure Brown’s return. No Briton has ever been forced to return from the Dominican Republic and there is no extradition treaty between the two countries. Liberal Democrats Dominican Republic Party funding Crime Rajeev Syal guardian.co.uk
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Reduction in number of constituencies will see high-profile figures face election battle as seats are merged A series of clashes between high-profile MPs from the main political parties will take place at the next general election, after the boundary review unveiled bigger than expected changes to England’s parliamentary constituencies. As anxious Conservatives warned their whips on Monday night of a rebellion against the changes, which will have to be approved by the Commons, MPs across the house were ready for bruising battles. Vince Cable leads a list of senior Liberal Democrat MPs who face major changes to their constituencies. Large chunks of Cable’s Twickenham will be joined with Richmond, setting up a possible clash at the election between the business secretary and Zac Goldsmith, Tory MP for Richmond Park. Cable may decide to stand in the new seat of Teddington and Hanworth which takes in much of his old seat of Twickenham. The main changes in the review by the Boundary Commission for England, which is designed to reduce the size of the commons from 650 MPs to 600, include: • A clash between two rising stars of the Labour: shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan and shadow business minister Chuka Umunna. Their seats of Streatham and Tooting are combined into one. • Major changes to the Chingford and Woodford Green seat held by Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary. Three strong Labour wards from Edmonton will be added to the seat, which becomes Chingford and Edmonton. • A “significantly reconfigured” seat of Eastleigh, Hampshire, held by Chris Huhne, energy and climate change secretary. • Changes to George Osborne’s Tatton seat. He is said to be relaxed because he believes his seat remains largely intact under the new name of Northwich. • Hugh Robertson, sports minister, loses his seat in Faversham and Mid Kent. • Nadine Dorries, the Tory abortion campaigner, loses her Mid Bedfordshire seat. Tim Farron, Lib Dem MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, will face a widely redrawn seat to be renamed Kendal and Penrith. This prompted speculation that Farron, seen as a future Lib Dem leader, would face a fight to remain in parliament. However, Tory sources feel the changes are gloomier for Rory Stewart, MP for neighbouring Penrith and the Border. All MPs with English seats were given personal copies of the Boundary Commission for England report in parliament’s Portcullis House at midday on Monday before its publication at midnight. Separate reports by the commissions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be released later. MPs sat in groups in Portcullis House poring over maps of the changes that will see the number of constituencies cut from 533 to 502. Tory MPs, who had been led to believe by their party leadership that the review would favour their party, were involved in tense discussions with their whips about the changes, which went further than they expected. “We are not happy about this,” one senior Tory said. “There are MPs who gave up a lot to come here and now it looks like they face real fights. Whips have been coming up to us and asking how we are taking this. Not well is the message.” The MP said it was possible that the changes might be dropped. “This is far more wide-ranging than anyone had thought. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is dropped. They’ll just say it is all too complicated and they’ll come back to it after the election.” Downing Street sources said the prime minister, whose Witney constituency remains unchanged, was adamant that the changes will go ahead. The Tories and Lib Dems both pledged in their manifestos to cut the size of the Commons. Cutting the number of seats from 650 to 600 is designed to save £12m a year and even up the size of seats. The Tories believe that Labour has an unfair advantage. The average size of the electorate in a Labour seat is 68,487, compared with 72,418 in Conservative seats. The average size of a Lib Dem seat is 69,440, mainly because it has proportionally more seats in Scotland where constituencies tend to be smaller. Under the changes, a parliamentary constituency must have an electorate that is no smaller than 72,810 and no larger than 80,473. There will be exemptions. The Isle of Wight, which has an electorate of just over 100,000 and is currently one constituency, is to be broken into two seats. Orkney and Shetland will be one seat. Na h-Eileanan an Iar, formerly the Western Isles, will remain as one seat even though it has an electorate of just over 20,000. Tory, Labour and Lib Dem strategists were working late into the night to assess the impact of the changes. Sources said it would take time to make a proper assessment. But in initial conclusions the Tories feared they had been handed many more marginal seats, though that could work in Cameron’s favour at the next election if there is a swing to the Conservatives. The Lib Dems will face a challenge because changes to seats stretch the resources of a smaller party. But they point to the success of Sarah Teather, the education minister, who held on in the new seat of Brent Central. None of the main parties commented publicly in detail on the Boundary Commission review but Ed Miliband criticised the government’s plans to cut the size of the Commons. “We have serious concerns about the government’s decision to change the boundaries, which we believe was an act of gerrymandering by the Conservative party,” the Labour leader said. “However the Labour party now intends to take time to examine the initial proposals before making our formal response.” Pete Reeve, the Ukip local government spokesman, said: “It weakens the already tenuous link between the MP and his or her constituents. By increasing the size of the constituencies it will have the effect of pushing people away, rather than drawing them into the political process. Each MP will have to look after even more people, and there are precious few today who look after those they have very well.” Electoral reform Liberal Democrats Conservatives Labour Vince Cable Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
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Reduction in number of constituencies will see high-profile figures face election battle as seats are merged A series of clashes between high-profile MPs from the main political parties will take place at the next general election, after the boundary review unveiled bigger than expected changes to England’s parliamentary constituencies. As anxious Conservatives warned their whips on Monday night of a rebellion against the changes, which will have to be approved by the Commons, MPs across the house were ready for bruising battles. Vince Cable leads a list of senior Liberal Democrat MPs who face major changes to their constituencies. Large chunks of Cable’s Twickenham will be joined with Richmond, setting up a possible clash at the election between the business secretary and Zac Goldsmith, Tory MP for Richmond Park. Cable may decide to stand in the new seat of Teddington and Hanworth which takes in much of his old seat of Twickenham. The main changes in the review by the Boundary Commission for England, which is designed to reduce the size of the commons from 650 MPs to 600, include: • A clash between two rising stars of the Labour: shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan and shadow business minister Chuka Umunna. Their seats of Streatham and Tooting are combined into one. • Major changes to the Chingford and Woodford Green seat held by Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary. Three strong Labour wards from Edmonton will be added to the seat, which becomes Chingford and Edmonton. • A “significantly reconfigured” seat of Eastleigh, Hampshire, held by Chris Huhne, energy and climate change secretary. • Changes to George Osborne’s Tatton seat. He is said to be relaxed because he believes his seat remains largely intact under the new name of Northwich. • Hugh Robertson, sports minister, loses his seat in Faversham and Mid Kent. • Nadine Dorries, the Tory abortion campaigner, loses her Mid Bedfordshire seat. Tim Farron, Lib Dem MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, will face a widely redrawn seat to be renamed Kendal and Penrith. This prompted speculation that Farron, seen as a future Lib Dem leader, would face a fight to remain in parliament. However, Tory sources feel the changes are gloomier for Rory Stewart, MP for neighbouring Penrith and the Border. All MPs with English seats were given personal copies of the Boundary Commission for England report in parliament’s Portcullis House at midday on Monday before its publication at midnight. Separate reports by the commissions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be released later. MPs sat in groups in Portcullis House poring over maps of the changes that will see the number of constituencies cut from 533 to 502. Tory MPs, who had been led to believe by their party leadership that the review would favour their party, were involved in tense discussions with their whips about the changes, which went further than they expected. “We are not happy about this,” one senior Tory said. “There are MPs who gave up a lot to come here and now it looks like they face real fights. Whips have been coming up to us and asking how we are taking this. Not well is the message.” The MP said it was possible that the changes might be dropped. “This is far more wide-ranging than anyone had thought. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is dropped. They’ll just say it is all too complicated and they’ll come back to it after the election.” Downing Street sources said the prime minister, whose Witney constituency remains unchanged, was adamant that the changes will go ahead. The Tories and Lib Dems both pledged in their manifestos to cut the size of the Commons. Cutting the number of seats from 650 to 600 is designed to save £12m a year and even up the size of seats. The Tories believe that Labour has an unfair advantage. The average size of the electorate in a Labour seat is 68,487, compared with 72,418 in Conservative seats. The average size of a Lib Dem seat is 69,440, mainly because it has proportionally more seats in Scotland where constituencies tend to be smaller. Under the changes, a parliamentary constituency must have an electorate that is no smaller than 72,810 and no larger than 80,473. There will be exemptions. The Isle of Wight, which has an electorate of just over 100,000 and is currently one constituency, is to be broken into two seats. Orkney and Shetland will be one seat. Na h-Eileanan an Iar, formerly the Western Isles, will remain as one seat even though it has an electorate of just over 20,000. Tory, Labour and Lib Dem strategists were working late into the night to assess the impact of the changes. Sources said it would take time to make a proper assessment. But in initial conclusions the Tories feared they had been handed many more marginal seats, though that could work in Cameron’s favour at the next election if there is a swing to the Conservatives. The Lib Dems will face a challenge because changes to seats stretch the resources of a smaller party. But they point to the success of Sarah Teather, the education minister, who held on in the new seat of Brent Central. None of the main parties commented publicly in detail on the Boundary Commission review but Ed Miliband criticised the government’s plans to cut the size of the Commons. “We have serious concerns about the government’s decision to change the boundaries, which we believe was an act of gerrymandering by the Conservative party,” the Labour leader said. “However the Labour party now intends to take time to examine the initial proposals before making our formal response.” Pete Reeve, the Ukip local government spokesman, said: “It weakens the already tenuous link between the MP and his or her constituents. By increasing the size of the constituencies it will have the effect of pushing people away, rather than drawing them into the political process. Each MP will have to look after even more people, and there are precious few today who look after those they have very well.” Electoral reform Liberal Democrats Conservatives Labour Vince Cable Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
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Possible Terorrist Attack On The USA White House On 11/9/2011 – September 11th 2011 911 anniversary terror threat [CNN 9-09-2011] 9-11 terror threat WeARENYC says: High Security Remains in Place The extra security put in place last week by the NYPD stemming from a possible 9 / 11 terror threat remains in
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