The scale of Keir Starmer’s challenge at the next election is becoming clearer – it’s huge

Keir Starmer needs to do better than every Labour leader since the war – apart from Tony Blair in 1997 – just to become prime minister at the head of a minority Labour government in a hung parliament at the next election.

Now that the boundary commissions for England, Scotland and Wales have published the first draft of their proposals for new constituencies coming into effect in 2023, we have a clearer idea of the scale of Labour’s challenge. Thanks to analysis by Electoral Calculus, a brilliant public service, we know that the effect of new boundaries is to give the Conservatives about 13 more seats. Labour loses eight seats, the Liberal Democrats three and Plaid Cymru two.

The first thing to say about these changes is that they are fair, even if they may not seem like it to the parties that lose out. Population movement means that the electorates in Labour constituencies tend to be smaller than in Tory ones, which gave Labour an unfair advantage at the last election. Now, the independent commissions have tried to equalise constituencies to level the playing field.