By Alan Irving

Published at 11:11, Thursday, 09 August 2012

COPELAND Labour MP Jamie Reed has slammed the Prime Minister’s pledge to push ahead with controversial plans to change parliamentary boundaries.

David Cameron’s decision follows a clash with coalition deputy director Nick Clegg, who says the Lib-Dems will not support the proposed changes as the Tories won’t back reforms to the House of Lords.

Jamie Reed yesterday described the situation as ‘sickening’ but as the boundary changes were still on the agenda he was still firmly behind a new West Cumbria seat instead of the proposal to combine Copeland with Windermere.

This was “senseless,” he maintained.

He called David Cameron’s commitment to re-draw parliamentary boundaries as “a political vanity project” costing millions of pounds.

All Cumbrian MPs had submitted joint proposals which includes a joint West Cumbria seat.

Mr Reed said: “From a personal point of view, if selected, I would be honoured to be Labour’s candidate but I think it’s fairly nauseating to see our democracy being horse-trained in public by two political parties who are only interested in self-preservation.

“As the deficit grows and borrowing rises and public services like the NHS are slashed and people are thrown out of work we have this grubby spectacle ongoing and looks set to continue.

“This probably isn’t dead yet. Nick Clegg has established a track record of humiliating climb downs – I expect another one on boundary changes.”

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk