Out of bounds

THE COALITION government suffered its biggest split so far as the Liberal Democrats helped defeat Conservative plans to redraw constituency boundaries before the 2015 general election.

A Lords amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, which postpones the boundary revision until 2018, was favoured by 334 MPs to 292, a significant majority of 42.

All 57 Lib Dems entered the opposite lobby to their Tory colleagues, along with the 251 Labour MPs, six Scottish Nationalists, six Democratic Unionists, three Plaid Cymru, three Irish Nationalists.

Caroline Lucas of the Green Party, George Galloway of Respect and two independents also voted with Labour and the Lib Dems.

Notably, even four Conservative MPs - David Davis, Philip Davies, Richard Shepherd and John Baron - rebelled against party policy.

For the most part, though, the disdain from the Tory backbenches was unequivocal.

Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough, even went as far as to call on the Lib Dem ministers to resign if they could not accept collective responsibility. "They're a disgrace and they should be over there," he said, pointing across the floor.

Mr Bone was joined by Penny Mordaunt, MP for Portsmouth North, who said the Lib Dems were motivated by "spite, pettiness and self-interest". Miss Mordaunt also accused them of making "flirtatious glances" to Labour as potential future coalition partners.

"The Liberals have exchanged their legendary sandals for flip-flops in the hope that it will enable them to keep their options open," she added.

However, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg defended their position and described it as "perfectly reasonable". After all, the other part of this Bill was meant to bring about reform of the House of Lords, but that collapsed last summer due to opposition from Conservative backbenchers.

Indeed, some will consider this as the day Mr Clegg's party finally stood up to David Cameron's Tory bullies - and a more lusty blow they would have struggled to deliver.

For, now that the boundaries will remain untouched before 2015, the chances of a Conservative majority at the next general election are looking slim.

On his New Statesman blog, George Eaton has noted that the Tories require a lead of seven points to win an overall majority, compared to a lead of four points under the new boundaries.

Labour, by contrast, needs a lead of just one point to win a majority under the current system, compared to a lead of three points under the proposed boundaries.

And so, the voting by the Labour, Lib Dem and other MPs was actually fundamentally undemocratic.

This was a point made by Leader of the House of Commons Andrew Lansley who described the Lords' amendment as a "democratic travesty" and an "abuse of parliamentary process".

However, there was little sympathy for Mr Cameron, and certainly none from the Lib Dem benches, following the failure in 2011 of Alternative Vote referendum.

The Conservatives claimed that simply just by holding the referendum, they had upheld their side of the deal.

But, while Mr Cameron was not directly involved, the Lib Dems were aghast that the No2AV campaign received strong support from the Tories and their well-oiled media machine.

After all, on constitutional matters, it is defeat in the AV vote which has caused the Lib Dems the most heartache, not their failure to reform the Lords.

Of course, it must be said that nothing has actually been decided in electoral terms by this decision in Parliament, and both main parties will feel that there is everything to play for.

Bullish Labour has already published a list of 106 target seats which, if successful, would give the party a working majority.

Meanwhile, the Conservative Home website has a running blog simply called "Majority", which is attempting to come up with a strategy of just how the party could win an overall majority for the first time since 1992.

On the political Right, though, the boundaries decision is killing off hope. Following the result, Daily Mail deputy political editor Tim Shipman declared on Twitter: "Labour cheers as they win the next election".

And, while it is difficult still at this stage to envisage the prospect of Ed Miliband as Prime Minister, his party certainly now justifies the shortening in their odds to triumph in 2015.