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GIVEN THE UNCERTAINTIES OF A PARLIAMENTARY CAREER IN GREAT BRITAIN, IT IS TO BE EXPECTED THAT MPS SHOULD ACT TO MAINTAIN THEIR INTERESTS AND TO ENSURE THEIR CONTINUED PRESENCE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. THOSE INTERESTS ARE SERVED BY MAXIMIZING THEIR PARTY'S REPRESENTATION IN THE COMMONS AND THEIR OWN CHANCES OF RE-ELECTION. THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES THE BOUNDARY REVIEW PROCESS. ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES HAVE MUCH TO TELL ABOUT THE PROCESS OF ELECTORAL REDISTRICTING IN GREAT BRITAIN.

A computer program is designed to produce all of the electoral constituencies for an English local authority, within the constraints imposed on the Parliamentary Boundary Commissioners. This builds on the seminal work of Gudgin and Taylor, and introduces size constraints, evaluates shape, and evaluates the electoral consequences of swings in voter opinion.

The rules under which the UK Boundary Commissions operate are imprecise in their wording. An attempt to achieve greater precision through the courts in 1982–83, after the Commissions had completed their Third Periodic Review of all constituencies, produced exactly the opposite outcome with judgements stressing the flexibility which the Commissions are accorded; one aspect of those judgements suggested greater importance for one of the rules (Rule 7) than had previously been assigned to it. The authors compare the outcome of the Third and Fourth Periodic Reviews conducted by the Boundary Commission for England. They find that the major change has been greater attention to electoral equality across all constituencies in the latter of the two—which is exactly what the 1982 court case had sought.

The Parliamentary Boundary Commission for England will soon be producing provisional recommendations for new constituencies for Greater London, which stands to lose as many as thirteen seats. In tackling this task, the Commission faces a substantial problem if it sticks to the previous practice of allocating seats separately to each London borough, and not being prepared to cross borough boundaries in the creation of constituencies. It is shown that the resultant underrepresentation and overrepresentation of boroughs will be greater than at previous reviews, and a procedure is suggested which will substantially overcome it, with as few as five pairs of boroughs created for purposes of constituency allocation and constituency definition.