Tories will re-draw political map in their own favour

David Cameron decided years ago he wanted to reduce the cost of politics and get rid of 50 out of 650 MPs.

The Boundary Commission's revisions have been archived since 2013 because the Lib Dems refused to go along with them - punishment for the Tories not backing their reform of the House of Lords.

The main casualties are areas like Sandwell and Wolverhampton. The Tory seats in southern Staffordshire are largely unchanged, although true blue Stone becomes West Staffordshire and gets a bit of Labour Stoke on Trent South added to it.

There are a few bits of South Staffordshire that get moved in Stafford, but nothing that should give Gavin Williamson or Jeremy Lefroy any cause for concern.

Wolverhampton North East, the seat held by Labour's Emma Reynolds, gets carved up between a new Wolverhampton East, Wolverhampton West and a new Walsall West.

West Bromwich East, held by Tom Watson, also gets split up. Both are big hitters - Miss Reynolds as shadow communities and local government secretary, Mr Watson as a contender for Labour's deputy leadership.

There was no way David Cameron could have had anything to do with the way in which the political maps were redrawn.

But when it comes to holding on to his seats in the Black Country, he could not have planned an advantage for 2020 better if he had been holding a marker pen.

Suddenly that result for Labour last week looks even more bleak.

Keeping the red flag flying

In the wake of the council elections there is now only one Labour district councillor in the whole of South Staffordshire.

The Tories are so strong there that 14 seats did not even get put to the public vote because no-one challenged their candidates.

They now hold 43 out of the 49 seats. Although I'm always wary of one-party authorities or those where the opposition is so small as to be utterly ineffective, there's no getting away from the fact the Conservatives are clearly the ones people wanted, just as in Sandwell, where 71 out of 72 seats belong to the same party, it is Labour. People could have stood in those 14 South Staffs seats if they'd wanted to. Their opponents don't have to invite them.

One thing I didn't fully appreciate amid the sea of figures, however, was that Labour may well owe its one South Staffs seat to the Tories.

In Huntington and Hatherton there were two seats available. But the Conservatives only put up one candidate in the ward. So on the one hand, it's not the greatest advert for democracy when people don't have a choice. But if the Tories had fought both seats, they might have wiped out Labour entirely.

Standing for the children's birthday party

Our new intake of MPs have spent the week getting themselves settled in to the Commons.

Dudley South Conservative Mike Wood celebrated his victory with his family.

His daughter and a friend had a joint birthday party so Mr Wood escorted around 20 six and seven-year-olds around Dudley Zoo.

Compared with the barking, braying and childish histrionics of the House, I'd imagine it was the height of grown up sophistication.