In a highly understandable piece of political tit for tat, the Liberal Democrats have delayed their support for Parliamentary boundary changes in response to the Tory’s contribution to the slow death of any House of Lords reform. (The proposed boundary changes to Westminster constituencies were judged to have favoured Conservative MPs.)
Alasdair McDonnell, Naomi Long, Gregory Campbell and Ian Paisley Jnr will breath a sign of relief as this buys them another opportunity for re-election in 2015.
The delay in the Westminster review means an expected reduction in the number of MLAs from 108 to 96 will no longer take place automatically. Stormont politicians have been considering the future size of the assembly but could not reach consensus.
While the cost saving would have been relatively small when compared with the cuts to health and education, it’s a token gesture that local politicians will avoid.
Alan Meban. Tweets as @alaninbelfast. Blogs about cinema and theatre over at Alan in Belfast. A freelancer who writes about, reports from, live-tweets and live-streams civic, academic and political events and conferences. He delivers social media training/coaching; produces podcasts and radio programmes; is a FactCheckNI director; a member of Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland; and a member of the Corrymeela Community.
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