Should the Highlands get more MPs and MSPs?

Take Glasgow Central. This UK constituency, first created in 1885, was killed off in 1997 then brought back from the dead in 2005. Now, barring a last-minute plot re-write, the seat is going to be dismembered in what, for politics nerds, must look like a scene from Saw. Eastwood, in the Scottish Parliament, faces an equally grisly end.

Look, we all know there are good reasons for the endless election map gorefests. Independent agencies north and south of the border are charged with the hellishly difficult task of designing constituencies that ensure our votes are as equal as possible.

At least, usually they are. There are exceptions: not all ballot papers weigh the same.

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There are constituencies, all islands or archipelagos, whose boundaries are “protected” in law. Orkney and Shetland’s Westminster seat has been unchanged since the toonies of Kirkwall were lumped in with the rest of the two historic counties in 1918. That was the same year that the Western Isles, or Na h-Eileanan an Iar, got its own perch on the green benches.

This principle is applied elsewhere, for Ynys Môn or Anglesley in Wales (which, I kid you not, has been a single, unchanged Westminster constituency since 1536) and the Isle of Wight in England.

The idea was taken even further when the Scottish Parliament was created: Orkney and Shetland each got their own constituency.

This means that Orcadians have a first vote for Holyrood that packs nearly five times as much punch as that of their fellow citizens in, say, Linlithgow.

Nobody ever objects to this. Nobody. Ever. And rightly so, not least because constituency votes are balanced out by second ones for a regional list.

I think we understand that our democracy does not just represent individuals but communities too.

Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles are distinct in all sorts of ways.

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Their special treatment in national parliaments is so warranted that it is uncontroversial, unremarked, uncontested. And islanders will still – not without reason – complain that their sometimes very specific preoccupations do not get a decent hearing in either London or Edinburgh.

Plenty of Shetlanders, Orcadians and Outer Hebrideans think all three archipelagoes – which also have their own smaller-than-usual councils – should get more local autonomy too. That, of course, is another story.

But what about the Highlands? Communities there can also feel neglected, misunderstood, under-represented, outnumbered. Should their seats not also be protected?

A quarter of a century or so in to devolution and there are grumblings north of the fault. Sure, there were always voices who feared a Scottish Parliament would – like all football referees in the minds of we Aberdeen fans – have a Central Belt bias.

I am not saying Highland lobbies are right – or wrong – on any issue. But are there enough elected members to make sure the many specific challenges and opportunities of the region are properly addressed? I am not sure there are.

Fergus Ewing, the SNP MSP and former minister who probably now counts as a maverick, last month mooted a modest possible solution. The veteran suggested the number of Holyrood seats in the Highland council area should go up from three to four, with one of the big cities sacrificing a constituency.

Mr Ewing was backed by other Highland politicians across party lines. Will his proposal bring a last minute rethink for boundaries under consultation this month? Don’t bet your house on it.

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Ask a MSP or MP for the Highlands about this and they will tell you their constituencies are preposterously, impossibly big. Jamie Stone who represents Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross in Westminster, reckons the sheer size of his seat represents a “democratic deficit”. How come? Voters cannot get easy access to to their representative, he says.

It looks like Highland constituencies will get even bigger with boundary changes. The idea that some of these constituencies are meaningful “communities” is absurd. Ian Blackford MP, as an example, has to drive 120 miles or so to get to one of his two offices. His seat, Ross, Skye and Lochaber, is not much smaller than Northern Ireland.

These country-sized constituencies can also have whopping populations. Mr Ewing’s Inverness and Nairn, in its current boundaries, has more voters than all but four other Holyrood seats. You can see his gripe.

Other democracies have ways of balancing their legislatures to ensure smaller districts or regions are represented, often in an upper chamber.

The United States gives the titchy state of Rhode Island (whose area, trivia fans, is just a third of that of Mr Blackford’s constituency) the same number of senators as giant California (which is bigger than Britain).

America, with its rampant gerrymandering and cranky, creeking old constitution, is maybe not the best example to cite. But there are plenty of federal states that accept the principle that less populated but distinct communities deserve heightened representation. Australia’s Northern Territory, for example, has two out of 151 MPs in the House of Representatives but also two out of 76 seats in the Senate.

Now, neither Britain as a whole nor Scotland are anywhere close to having a democratic second chamber of any kind. Which is a shame. And there is no appetitive among political parties or activists to relitigate which, if any, constituencies should get protected status. That can of worms sits on a shelf, dusty and unopened.

As things stand only archipelagos are special, we are told. Or, rather, some are. Argyll and Bute has more inhabited islands than any other constituency, including Orkney. Yet its MP, Brendan O’Hara, is expected to an area that somehow includes both Tiree and a chunk of Glasgow’s commuter belt. It takes a day to cross the area Mr O’Hara is supposed to cover. A whole day.