Analysis

THE first proposals for constituency boundary changes since devolution sent MSPs scurrying to their back offices with advisers yesterday. Who might lose? Who might gain? Which comrades might be rivals for a combined seat?

Who wants a front row ticket for Frank McAveety versus Margaret Curran, whose Shettleston and Baillieston constituencies are effectively merged after the latest review?

The secretary of the Boundary Commission for Scotland was much more sanguine. "MSPs' careers are really not my bag," explained Dr Hugh Buchanan, the calmest voice on the whole issue yesterday.

The reason for Dr Buchanan's calm at the centre of the storm of speculation is that the commission works to statute and the statute is pretty tight.

They work out what the average seat size should be, they try to fit these into local authority boundaries, then they deal with knock-ons from that until they have an overall plan they are prepared to put before the public.

That plan is published today and it's a radical redrawing of the boundaries given that, unlike the last Westminster change, the overall numbers at Holyrood are remaining the same. In law, Shetland and Orkney are guaranteed their seats.

In practical terms the same applies to Na n-Eileanan An Iar, as the Western Isles seat will be formally renamed this time, following the Westminster convention.

Of the other 70 seats, only Falkirk's two are left unchanged, on the grounds that neither their electorates nor local authority boundaries have changed. So 68 seats will see change, on a scale from radical merger or name change, to minor tweaking around the edges.

The Herald put to Dr Buchanan the broad thesis that Glasgow would lose a seat while the north-east of Scotland would gain one.

He said it wasn't as simple a transfer as that. In as much as there was a pattern, it was about tracking the flight from cities to suburbia.

So Glasgow does lose, but to Lanarkshire. But so, too, does Aberdeen lose out to Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh to West Lothian, Dundee to Angus. The dominoes from these changes ripple out towards Stirling and beyond to Perth, and from East Lothian and Midlothian down to the Borders.

In two population centres, the commission's instinct to consolidate into a single seat was thwarted by the ability to create workable landward constituencies. So Inverness remains split between two rural hinterlands and Dumfries is now about to be similarly divided once more.

On one issue in particular, the commission expects trouble. That is the increasing tendency, begun at the last Westminster boundary change, towards bland constituency names based on the points of the compass.

Anniesland, Baillieston, Cathcart, Govan, Kelvin, Maryhill, Pollok, Shettleston and Springburn would all vanish as names, as would Bearsden, while Rutherglen would join Lanarkshire and drop the Glasgow from its title. In Edinburgh Leith survives, but Pentland would disappear.

"We'll be very interested to hear people's comments on the names," said Dr Buchanan. "We have had this argument before about generic versus neighbourhood names.

"The risk is that very often when you keep a geographical name you displease as many people as you make happy, but we will certainly look forward with interest to the responses to the consultation."

It is a matter of fact that Glasgow loses two seats, but one is a loss in name only with Rutherglen going into its natural South Lanarkshire Council home. The other will undoubtedly cause some jostling in the East End as Frank McAveety and Margaret Curran contest the new seat. But Labour point out that the changes to Govan could dilute that constituency into others and cost the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon her hard-won prize after a single term.

It is also true that the ripple effect through Stirling and towards the north-east would create another seat in what has become an SNP heartland but shifts in boundaries will come in areas keenly contested by the Liberal Democrats and Tories.

The same applies in the south-west. Labour strategists are gloomy about saving a Dumfries seat split into two with big rural hinterlands, but either Tories or the SNP could benefit there, while the ripple effect of that boundary change carries up into Clydesdale.

Meanwhile, the trimming of Edinburgh into the same number of more tightly bounded seats, and the boom in commuter belt East Lothian leaves Musselburgh out of the mix. The Honest Toun, having been a yo-yo between city and East Lothian in the past, now goes south into Midlothian, a change which ripples into the Borders.

In all this the SNP remains relentlessly upbeat, as its continuing honeymoon appears to merit. "Where we see changes, we see challenges and areas we can pile into. We're good at that," said a party spokeswoman.

But there is every chance that once all the numbers from this review have been crunched its effect will be of the order of a single seat.

What is not in doubt is that the advantage will not be in favour of Labour.