File this under the law of unintended consequences, but an unforeseen aftereffect of two of the Liberal Democrats' twin passions – devolution and proportional representation – were on display at a fringe in Bournemouth today.
Delegates at the Make Votes Count fringe mulled over the dilemma that now Scotland has its own parliament, the number of Westminster MPs north of the border is about to be cut: trimmed, to be more accurate, rather than the more severe cull that some had been calling for.
So in future there will only be 59 MPs in Scotland, rather than the current 73 constituencies, which formed the model for the setting up of the Scottish parliament. But the problem is that there are no plans to reduce the 73 MSP constitutencies (for 120-plus MSPs) for Holyrood elections.
Now, keep up at the back, but that means there will be 14 more Scottish parliament constituencies than Westminster constituencies, with all the confusions – not least for the logistics of local party organisations – that entails.
The abyss gets deeper when you realise that voters in Scotland elect their local MP under the straightforward first past the post system, but select MSPs through a multi-member 'Additional Member System' which sees a top- up of additional (often defeated first past the post) candidates installed to represent their constituency. Their Scottish parliament constituency, that is.
In other words, your Scottish voter in the street could be faced with one MP in one constituency, a choice of seven in another, and joining up for two constituencies as a mere member.
Nobody seems to have come up with a nifty solution yet, but the Scottish Office, under Alistair Darling (when he's not busy running the railways and cancelling tram schemes) has set up something called the Arbuthnot inquiry to look into the problem.
