Nick Clegg claimed that safe seats beget a tendency to dodgy expense claims. Channel 4 Fact Checked it, clarifying that there were twice as many expense villains in the seats with the strongest majorities than in those with the weakest. That's not to say that one causes the other, but it is an interesting result. I hope it is an indication of the power that voters wield.Safe Seats are allocated by parties to those politicians with the potential to sit on the front bench, indicating the power that parties wield in the careers of candidates and the tension between loyalty to the party and loyalty to the constituency.
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A political party will certainly want to ensure its 'Big beasts' are most likely to be relected and so alocate them safe constituencies and this is to be expected. We may even argue that this is for the good of the country, ensuring that the brightest and best are availiable for top jobs. But id we look at the people who did claim for silly things on their expences you don't come away thinking these guys are irriplacable.
It may be a crazy idea but isn't it just as likely that the the choice of a candidate for a safe seat may be better made firstly by the local party grassroots and secondly by the electorate.
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