The Tory power grab
Looks like the Tories are implementing their version of US Republican power grab, gerrymandering and voter suppression.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/14/conservative-power-grab-stay-in-power-permanent
In July, against the advice of the independent Electoral Commission, the government announced that it was accelerating the introduction of a new and controversial system for registering voters, Individual Electoral Registration (IER), so that it could be used for elections from the spring of 2016 onwards, including next year’s for London mayor. In theory, IER, which requires voters to register themselves, is a modern, much-needed replacement for the old system of registering voters by household, which was rooted in 19th-century assumptions connecting voting to property ownership. The system was occasionally exploited by electoral fraudsters, and more often was unable to cope with the fluidity of contemporary life – which meant that by 2015, one voter in 10 was left unregistered. The legislation for IER was introduced by Gordon Brown’s Labour government, with Conservative and Lib Dem support, in 2009.
Yet since then it has become steadily more clear that, in practice, the new system does not work well for some types of voters. “Inner-city areas, especially those with young and/or student populations and high levels of privately rented property, are most at risk,” according to a report on IER published last month by the left-leaning thinktank the Smith Institute, titled 10 Million Missing Voters! Another recent study, by the pro-diversity pressure group Hope Not Hate, found IER to be most inadequate in places with a lot of “multiple occupancy housing” and “regular home movers”. London and Scotland were the worst affected areas, potentially losing 6.9% and 5.5% of their voters respectively.
The electoral consequences of all this may be profound. London and Scotland, the inner cities, university towns, voters under 25 – these are all contexts where the Conservatives still struggle. At the last general election, according to the pollsters Ipsos Mori, the Conservatives received the support of only 27% of 18- to 24-year-olds. Labour got 43%. The government’s rushed introduction of IER fits a pattern, Baker argues: “Since the election Osborne has gone round saying: ‘Where are the threats to us? Where is the opposition? How can we damage it?’”
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