Ingredients which make up the Boundary Commission's proposal

IT is probably not as controversial as the transfer of the Great British Bake Off to Channel 4, but the transfer of voters between constituencies will get people talking.

The Boundary Commission has been wielding its knife at the cake that is the North-East and, however you slice it, some people are not going to be happy – they will think that their neighbour’s slice is bigger or better shaped or looks more tasty than their own.

Some of the Commission’s slicing makes perfect sense. The Darlington seat will be “co-terminous” with the council boundaries – ie: everyone under the yoke of Darlington council will be represented by the Darlington MP – and it will be a tasty-looking morsel for the Conservatives.

But the plans also produce plenty of unwelcome soggy bottoms. Stockton, for instance, looks as if it has been sliced and diced. The historic town – every bit as much an entity as Darlington – has been split between three MPs with its town centre kneaded into a constituency with bits of Middlesbrough.

And then there is West Durham and Teesdale, a massive mouthful of conflicting tastes which no one can stomach.

The constituency cake is being resliced for two reasons. Firstly, for fairness. As populations shift, it is important that every vote is identical. Under the new boundaries, the seats will have an average electorate of 74,679.

Secondly, in the run-up to the 2010 election, when the MPs’ expenses scandal was at its most lurid, David Cameron felt that it would be popular to cut 50 MPs and save the country £12m.

The Boundary Commission set to work, presented preliminary plans in 2011, only for the Liberal Democrats in the coalition to rebel. Asking MPs to vote for fewer MPs is exactly the same as asking turkeys to vote for Christmas, and the Lib Dems, fearful for their seats, refused to back the cull.

Now in 2016, the new Prime Minister, Theresa May, has a majority of just 13 – will she be able to push through these changes which will make 15 or 20 of her own MPs redundant?

And it must be worth asking if it is right to reduce the number of MPs to a level not seen since 1707. MPs are still unpopular, but one of the biggest complaints about them is that they are invisible in their constituencies. This is unsurprising in somewhere like Richmond, the largest geographical constituency in the country, where the MP is expected to be in Hawes one moment and Great Ayton the next.

The North-East is to lose four MPs, from 29 to 25, and so the reslicing will create more unpalatably large seats. For instance, the MP for East Durham will be stretched from Aycliffe Village to Blackhall Rocks, and the MP for West Durham and Teesdale will simultaneously need to be in Stainmore, Stanhope and Consett. This seat belies natural human geography: dalespeople tend to look east to west up and down their own dale, not over the tops into the neighbouring dale, yet this seat will stretch from the A66 up and down through Teesdale and Weardale into the Deerness Valley, twinning Barnard Castle – a country town that looks towards Darlington and Richmond – with Consett – an ex-industrial steeltown that looks towards Newcastle.

Not even Mary Berry could make such a confection work.

And, post-Brexit, our MPs will be busier than ever incorporating tens of thousands of pieces of EU legislation into the British constitution. Although no one likes to encourage them, we may need more MPs rather than fewer if we are to get good quality red tape.

Labour is accusing the Tories of “gerrymandering” – shifting the boundaries to suit themselves. It is estimated that nationally 30 of the 50 MPs to go will be Labour, but it is difficult to see gerrymandering evidence in the North-East.

Of our traditional marginals, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland still looks an entertaining mix of prosperous Conservative suburbs and deprived Labour coastal areas, and Stockton South is so cut about that it becomes Stockton West with no great gain for the sub-region’s only Conservative, James Wharton. Indeed, it could even be a disadvantage to Mr Wharton for his boundaries to change as he has worked assiduously where he is to raise his majority from 332 in 2010 to 5,046 in 2015.

Which brings us to the newly co-terminous Darlington. The town last elected a Conservative MP, Michael Fallon, in 1987, and the council is comfortably Labour, by 29 councillors to 17. But the new villages coming into the Parliamentary constituency – Heighington, Hurworth, Middleton St George and Sadberge – are all inclined against Labour, in the 2011 election by 1,004 votes to 3,529.

That sort of difference would certainly eat into Jenny Chapman’s 3,158 majority. If the Conservatives were to win Darlington because of boundary changes, it would, as they say on Bake Off, be a real showstopper.