Musical chairs

based on OS mapping and copyright

There is only one thing on you're MPs mind today, his job. Why because the number of Welsh seats in Parliament is being reduced from forty to thirty. And what's worse many of them will have to fight colleagues for the right to represent the party in the new seat.

The map above shows the biggest change in election boundaries since the end of the second world war. New constituency names will emerge such as the Dee Estuary, North Wales Coast,and Glyndwr and North Powys to name but a few. And even those that retain their original names are very different entities to the existing ones. No seat remains the same. 

If you object you have 12 weeks to make your views known to the Boundary Commission.

And why the change? Well, Mr Cameron in response to the universal disapproval over MPs expenditure decided that to curry favour with voters he would reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 and that every constituency would be broadly of the same size.  Resulting in every constituency being between 72,810 to 80,473 voters. All this was passed in "The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011". 

Now not many existing Welsh seats were within the new required range, hence the reduction of seats in Wales from 40 to 30 and the massive shake up now being proposed. 

So where does that leave the parties. Who will win and who will loose? Below is my quick look at the seats.

1 Menai and Ynys Mon. This is likely to be a Labour/Plaid Cymru marginal, with Labour having the edge.

2 Gwynedd. Plaid Cymru

3 Ceredigion and North Pembrokeshire Another marginal but this time between Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats with Plaid with the edge.

4 South and West Pembrokeshire. Conservative

5 Caerfyddin. Plaid Cymru

6 Llanelli. Labour

7 Gower and Swansea West. Labour

8 Swansea East. Labour

9 Neath. Labour

10 Aberavon and Ogmore. Labour

11 Bridgend. Labour

12 The Vale of Glamorgan. Conservative

13 Cardiff West. Labour

14 Cardiff Central and Penarth. Labour

15 Cardiff East. Labour

16 Caerphilly and Cardiff North. Conservative/Labour marginal with the Conservatives with a big edge

17 Newport West and Sirhowy Valley. Labour

18 Newport Central. Labour

19 Monmouthshire. Conservative

20 Torfaen. Labour

21 Blaenau Gwent. Labour

22 Heads of the Valleys. Labour

23 Rhondda. Labour

24 Pontypridd. Labour

25 South Powys. Liberal Democrat

26 Glyndwr and North Powys. Becomes the most interesting seat in Wales a four way marginal

27 Wrexham Maelor. Labour

28 Alyn and Deeside. Labour

29 Dee Estuary. Labour

30 North Wales Coast. Conservatives

Labour will almost certainly  have nineteen seats and in a good year could be up to twenty three.They currently have twenty six.

Conservatives are more than likely to have four seats and  another three would be a realistic number for them to target. They have eight seats in the current Parliament

Plaid Cymru will certainly hold two seats but have the edge in another one and who knows in a good year another 2 could be in their grasp. They have 3 at the moment.

Liberal Democrats are almost certainly to hold one seat. They may have a chance in another two. But they have three at the moment. The review has not been kind to them.

But the interesting tussles will be between MPs of the same party. They will have to play the political equivalent of musical chairs to make sure they don't loose out in the cull of seats.  But more of these in future blogs.