One of the proposals in the MP's expenses report out yesterday is that those members who live within reasonable commuting distance of Westminster should not be able to claim a second homes allowance. How far is, say, an hour from Westminster?
To simplify matters, we assume that the member will be commuting by rail, and according to the TFL planner within central London. Using official TFL journey times, we get these Westminster-to-mainline results:
Victoria - 8 minutes (bus) Charing Cross - 10 minutes (walk) Waterloo - 13 minutes (walk) Euston - 20 minutes (bus and tube) Marylebone - 21 minutes (tubes) King's Cross - 22 minutes (bus and tube) St Pancras - 22 minutes (bus and tube) Fenchurch Street - 22 minutes (tube and walk) Paddington - 24 minutes (tubes) Liverpool Street - 24 minutes (tube)
We now look for stations within travelling distance so that it's possible to get from Westminster to the far station within one hour.
From Victoria, that brings in all stations on the Brighton line as far as Crawley; stations on the Horsham line up to (but not including) Dorking, as far as Maidstone on the Ashford service, and Rainham on the Ramsgate line.
From Charing Cross, to Tonbridge on the Hastings and Ashford services; to Northfleet on the Dartford line.
From Waterloo, all except Dorking on that line, as far as Haslemere and Fleet on the Portsmouth lines, to Ash Vale on the Aldershot line, and to Sunningdale on the Reading service.
Out of Paddington, Reading does come into play, as does the rest of the line from there to Waterloo. Didcot is just out of bounds, as are Henley-on-Thames and Marlow, but Maidenhead is within the hour.
Coming from Marylebone, Amersham and Princes Risborough are the limits.
Euston's footprint stretches to Milton Keynes, but nowhere up the line to Bedford.
From St Pancras and King's Cross, trains can get past Luton and Stevenage to Biggleswade and Royston.
Liverpool Street departures will take our member to Stanstead, Wickford, and Hatfield Peverel.
Fenchurch Street gets as far as Benfleet, covering both the Basildon and Tilbury branches.
We've excluded London Bridge and Blackfriars from these calculations, as they don't add anything to the map.
The line, therefore, runs through Lewes, Tonbridge, Maidstone, Chatham and Medway, over the Thames to Castle Point, Chelmsford, Harlow, the entirity of Hertfordshire, Luton and Mid Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes, Wycombe, Reading and Wokingham, the whole of Surrey, Horsham, Crawley, and into Brighton.
By our reckoning, that's 60 constituencies out of London, and all 74 inside it.
