Now here at Politickle we don’t indulge in pure unfounded speculation, you know that, but this one, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, has bona fide credentials… Labour and Tory backbenchers could end up in a backbench coalition over the Coalition’s referendum and boundary change 2-for-1 offer.
Last night the Shadow Cabinet voted to reject the Bill, which has lumped all the Coalition’s electoral reforms, including AV referenda, a reduction in the number of MPs to 600, equalised constituencies, et cetera, et cetera, into one, tightly-knotted bundle for passage through Parliament. Meanwhile, jeering from the other side of the House are around 40 Tories, nostalgically holding on to the tradition of FPTP or just rebelling against their newfound liberal partners, mostly through the guise of dissatisfaction at the May 6 date.
And so, in a quite ridiculous turn of events, not least because Labour was the only party actually advocating AV in April, we may have Labour and Tory members holding hands in opposition to the Bill, whose second reading begins this fine eve…who’d’ve thought it, eh?
