A boundary allocation entailing more competitive results would not necessarily be more ‘political’, but it would be more democratic.

A recent post by Ron Johnston, Charles Pattie and David Rossiter objected to an idea published in the IPPR Democracy Commission which suggested that the UK Boundary Commission should take a more active role in creating ‘competitive’ constituencies on the grounds that it would politicise the neutral process by which boundaries are decided. Here, the author of the IPPR piece Sarah Birch responds to their critique, arguing that creating more competitive results would be good for democracy.