LETTER: Our MP to blame for Boundary Commission shake-up

Does he really expect us to believe he thought he could have voted in line with party policy to reduce the number of MPs to 600 and for it then to have no consequential effect on the Pendle constituency?

Enough of this NIMBY nonsense - it’s not just the Pendle constituency that is being changed. Up and down the country hundreds more are being butchered besides. The people responsible for this are the Conservative, and Liberal Democrat MPs that voted for it. The cost of carrying out these changes and addressing the confusion that will arise from it will be way beyond the cost of keeping the existing number of MPs on the books.

There is a phrase well known on both sides of the Lancashire/Yorkshire border, it might even be known in his native Cheshire – “If it’s not broken, don’t try to mend it”.

I, too, would prefer to maintain the “status quo” for Pendle and I read Mr Stephenson invites me to write to the Boundary Commission to ask them to change their minds. This is a mealy-mouthed abandonment of his responsibility; Mr Stephenson knows they are unlikely to change their minds.

However, Mr Stephenson and his coalition colleagues can overturn this legislation in their role of elected representatives of the people, in the House of Commons.

Will he be prepared to do this or alternatively will he try to blame your readership for not working hard enough to convince the Boundary Commission?

We will have to wait and see!

JOHN BOARDMAN

Chatsworth Close,

Barrowford