MPs in row over new seats set to push the boundaries

"Less is more"

So wrote the poet Robert Browning. I'll resist the temptation to follow such luminaries as Natasha Bedingfield, Marillion and Joss Stone into hijacking his famous catchphrase. But how's this?

Maybe I can make it my idea after all.

It explains how fewer voters in fewer constituencies could add up to a bigger majority for the Conservatives.

We are talking here about two separate, but not entirely unconnected, disputes.

The first began halfway through the last parliament when the Conservatives' proposals for a constituency boundary review fell foul of a bitter feud with their Liberal Democrat coalition partners.

A backbench Tory revolt led by the Hereford and South Herefordshire MP Jesse Norman scuppered one of the LibDems' most cherished ambitions, a radical reform of the House of Lords.

In a tit-for-tat response, Nick Clegg told David Cameron that since the Tories had failed to deliver Lords reform for him, his party would not give the Prime Minister's party the redrawn constituencies they craved.

It was estimated at the time that a review of the boundaries to take account of changing population patterns and equalise the size of constituencies might be worth at least twenty more seats to the Conservatives: the flight of middle class voters from the cities to the surrounding suburbs and shires over many decades had become known for short as "the demographics".

But factor-in the extra complication of David Cameron's determination to reduce the over all number of MPs by 50, and the number-crunchers reckon that if you had applied last May's voting patterns to the new parliamentary map, the Conservatives would have a majority of around 50, rather than their distinctly precarious total of 12.

No wonder the Conservatives are signalling their determination to press on with the review without delay.

Even though they have most to gain from it, any boundary review sends shudders down the spines of MPs in all parties. Our region's present tally of 63 seats would come down by five to 58. Birmingham and the Black Country would lose three seats. And right across the Midlands it would be a story of, wait for it, fewer and bigger constituencies.

Previous boundary reviews have tested the survival instincts of our MPs to the limits as hitherto safe seats became anything but. Bill Cash joined what Labour called the "chicken run" when his Stafford constituency was turned into a marginal seat in time for the 1997 election. Stafford duly succumbed to the Labour landslide but by then Mr Cash had found his safer bolt hole just up the A34 in Stone.

Now, though, the wheel is set to turn full circle: in the forthcoming boundary review, parts of Stone could be subsumed not just into into a new West Staffordshire constituency, but also into a redrawn version of Labour's Stoke South seat and, intriguingly, into part of the present Staffordshire Moorlands.

Could this herald the prospect of a fight to the death for the Moorlands nomination between Mr Cash and the current incumbent there, the high-flying Home Office Minister, Karen Bradley?

Nearby Stoke would go down from three constituencies to two, leading to intense speculation about the future of the former Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt, who resigned from the shadow cabinet rather than serve under Jeremy Corbyn.

I asked Mr Corbyn if so-called 'moderates' like Mr Hunt were under threat from a possible 'purge'. He replied it was a matter not for him but for the party's local membership. It would be interesting to know how much comfort Mr Hunt drew from that.

This leads us to the other dispute I signposted at the beginning.

Jeremy Corbyn also told me Labour would campaign "for all members to work in every town and city, every university to stop this Tory gerrymander."

What he has in his sights is the plan, now being rushed through by the government, to change the way people are registered for the vote, one year earlier than originally planned.

By 1 December, voters must be registered individually rather than listed on a form filled in by one member of a household. Anyone failing to do so will be removed from the electoral roll.

Labour accuse the Conservatives of election rigging. They believe many of 'the disappeared' would be young, predominantly Labour supporters, registered 'en bloc' in student flats, bedsits or other multi-occupancy accommodation.

Manipulating district boundaries for partisan advantage, that's what. But ministers deny they are doing any such thing. They say the new arrangements are being fast-tracked so they can be in place in time for important elections next May, including our local council polls. Nevertheless, by accident or design, accelerating the changes has the added attraction for the Conservatives of enabling the Boundary Review, due to start next year, to include the new, and for them, improved lists of voters.

But whatever your politics, how can it be a good for democracy to place an extra hurdle between a potential voter and the ballot box?

The Electoral Commission believes up to 1.9m people could disappear from the electoral rolls for failing to register individually.

But ministers insist a similar number of entries on the register are inaccurate or out of date. Constitutional Affairs Minister, John Penrose said voters had been reminded "at least nine times by letter" they need to re-register and local authorities were being given an extra £3 million to help them introduce the changes.

"Keeping the old register risks having an unknown number of redundant entries on the system which could distort the results of the Boundary Review, increase the risk of electoral fraud, and potentially compromise the integrity of those elections," he said.

So, an overdue reform, electoral skulduggery, or another example of unintended consequences?

Joining me on this week's Sunday Politics will be John Page, organiser of the "Hope not Hate" campaign for a modern, inclusive Britain.

He warns registration changes could take 57,000 voters off the electoral rolls in Birmingham alone, the equivalent of 7.7% of the city's voting population. Also with me will be the Treasury Minister and Conservative MP for West Worcestershire Harriett Baldwin, and the former Defence and Transport Minister John Speller, the Labour MP for Warley.

I hope you will join us at a slightly later time this week: 12.20pm on BBC One Midlands, following our coverage of Remembrance Day.