Boundary Review: Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight has had a far bigger impact on this boundary review than its size merits. The eleventh hour concession by the government as the legislation enacting this review gave the Isle two seats for the first time ever. As a consequence, the 600 seats the government had told us was the optimum size for the House of Commons became 602, and as a knock-on consequence one of those Isle of Wight seats was taken from London's allocation.

Isle of Wight has been the UK's biggest constituency - with around 110,000 voters, for many years (Milton Keynes briefly overtook it in the late 1980s before the town was split into two seats). Now it will have two of the smallest constituencies with about 55,000 electors in each.

The bulk of population lies on the northern coast, facing Hampshire in the towns of Newport, Cowes and Ryde. It's of course possible to draw the boundaries here in more than one way, but it is surely more likely that the commission will come up with a more town-based seat in the north, and then a rest-of-the-island seat which will include Sandown and Shanklin.

The most realistic prediction that can be made is that both Isle of Wight seats are will be Conservative/Liberal Democrats contests, with Labour in third place as it is now. Whether the Liberal Democrats can put one or both seats into play (and presumably the more urban one will be the closer), given they represented the Isle for 13 years under Stephen Ross is going to be one of the few vaguely interesting questions at the next election. Although current Conservative MP Andrew Turner has a 10,500 majority, because of the size of the electorate that equals just 15% of the vote. If that differs by five points or more in one or other division then the Isle of Wight will have a marginal seat once again.

As the Isle contests local elections only every four years and with the next local poll not due until 2013, there isnt likely to be a test of post-Coalition Liberal Democrat support for nearly two years. Labour's best set of results in recent times was the five seat haul in 2001, suggesting that a breakout from third place, whilst not impossible is unlikely.