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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 14, 2017 14:37:51 GMT
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 20, 2017 8:56:51 GMT
I've been giving some consideration to the situation in London based on EAL's numbers. Most of the detail will have to wait until we have ward figures but it's possible to establish some parameters. EAL has necessarily grouped boroughs together in the way that they are currently grouped but of course it doesn;t follow that these groupings would follow the same patterns in future. Starting in East London we have firstly Havering and Barking with a quota of 4.184 with Barking and Hornchurch & Upminster being over quota and Romford and Dagenham & Rainham being in quota. As the average seat size in this area would be 1.046 it seems very unlikely that it would be possible to draw four seats wholly within this area which are within quota. Nextw e have Redbridge and Waltham Forest with a quota of 4.957 which is good for 5 seats as there are there now. Ilford South is greatly above the upper limit and all three seats based on Waltham Forest are below the lower limit. Because of the tightness of situation in Havering/Barking it makes sense to treat these two areas as a single area which would give 9 seats (as now) with an average size of 1.016 of a quota.
I said I wouldn't get into detail but it is worthwhile to consider here the kind of changes that would be needed. Firstly Leyton & Wanstead is badly undersized. This is quite a longstanding pairing now and it makes considerable sense while there are no gerrymandering considerations as there may have been in the past (ie to try to use Wanstead and Snaresbrook to boost the Conservative position in another seat) so I am hoping that the simple addition of Leabridge ward would be sufficient to bring the seat into quota (Leabridge is part of Leyton historically in any case). Walthamstow would then gain the ward of Hale End & Highams Park from Chingford (likewise Hale End was always part of the old Walthamstow MB). The numbers do look very tight here and it may be that unfortunuately one or both of these seats may just be under the lower limit in which case a rethink will be needed. Assuming this works this would leave the Chingford seat, which is already well undersized, needing to pick up two extra wards and therefore we can add Bridge and Roding wards to reunite the whole of Woodford in this seat (Chingford & Woodford). Two wards from Ilford South would then need to be added to Ilford North to compensate for the Woodford wards. Historically, and up until 1997, the Chadwell and Seven Kings wards wards were included but it seems to me that Cranbrook and Newbury would be a much better fit (these two wards do have a significantly higher electorate than the two Woodford wards so again the numbers could be quite tight here). The loss of two wards would be too much for Ilford South so it would need to take a ward from Barking & Dagenham. Here there are a number of choices - Chadwell Heath links well with the Chadwell ward which is already in the seat while Longbridge is in many ways a good demographic match. My choice though would be to add Becontree ward which was part of Ilford South up until 1997 (and indeed part of Redbridge until 1994). Barking in turn will take the (smaller) ward of River from Dagenham.
There are a number of possibilities for the remaining three seats. Romford can of course remain unchanged but it may be helpful to the other seats in the area if a more general change around occurred. Hornchurch & Upminster needs to lose one ward net and it happens that the wards that can most easily be removed are in areas where removing one would split a natural community (ie Gooshays/Heaton and Hacton/St Andrews). The first option then is that H&U gains Squirrels Heath from Romford and sends the two Harold HIll wards the other way and Romford also loses Hylands to D&R. The second (and my preferred option is that H&U again gains Squirrels Heath from Romford but loses the two Hornchurch wards (and thus becomes plain Upminster). Romford again loses Hylands in this scenario and instead moves west to take the B&D wards of Chadwell Heath, Heath and Whalebone. Hylands, Hacton and St Andrews then all join the Dagenham & Rainham seat in a reconstituted Hornchurch which will just include Eastbrook and Village from B&D...
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 20, 2017 9:08:20 GMT
The next grouping involves three boroughs which are not currently paired, namely Newham (2.44 quotas), Tower Hamlets (2.39) and Hackney (2.30). CLearly there are more than enough voters for seven constituencies here where there are currently six. All the seats are oversized here but West Ham especially so. It seems pretty much a no-brainer that some kind of revival of the old Polar & canning Town seat is in order here, probably taking Beckton and Royal Hospital from East Ham and at least Canning Town South and Custom House from West Ham (possibly Canning Town North too). These would be joined by the three Isle of Dogs wards together with Polar, Lansbury and (possibly, if necessary) Limehouse. The cross borough Hackney/Tower Hamlets seat would comprise the two Bow wards, three bethnal Green wards (Bethnal Green, St Peters and Weavers) and the Haggerston and Hoxton wards from Hackney (Bethnal Green & Shoreditch). Hackney South would take Dalston and Shacklewell from Hackney North. The remainder of Tower Hamlets would incorporate most of the old borough of Stepney together with Bromley. I havent got round to working out notional results yet but I have a hunch there could be an extra seat for Labour here..
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 20, 2017 9:20:39 GMT
Moving into North London, Islington is not only spot on for two seats but the current seats are within quota so we can leave well alone. Haringey (2.12), Enfield (2.75) and Barnet (2.13) (the old London North European constituency) are together bang on for eight seats as they have now. The devil here will be in the detail as the Enfield seats are all undersized and ward sizes (especially in Barnet) make things tricky. There really isn't much point speculating about what would be possible here until we have ward numbers.
EAL has of necessity (because only constituency level figures are availble) grouped Camden and Brent together for 4.63 quotas. It looks very much like Camden alone would be good for two quotas which means basically returning to the 1997-2010 boundaries there (ie Hampstead gains Highgate and Gospel Oak). That leaves Brent out on a limb which may be solved by linking it with Harrow but the five Harrow/Hillingdon seats are all currently in quota. Furterhmore we come up against the West Central area with a quota of 4.465. It seems to make sense then to treat Brent/Camden and Westminster/Kensington/Hammersmith as asingle unit with a quota of 9.1. This raises the likelihood of there being some kind of 'Brent South & Westminster North' seat which may not be as bad as it sounds as long as you don't call it that (Queen's Park would work for me). Again there's not much point working out many more details than that without the ward figures
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Pimpernal
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Post by Pimpernal on Sept 20, 2017 16:48:41 GMT
The reduction in seats was never the least bit justified (especially whilst busily stuffing the HOL) so I'm glad about that. We can now get around to a new set of boundary reviews which may have already been passed were they less contentious. It was totally justified. At present we have the biggest lower house in any democracy and even the reduction to 600 would still have given us the 4th biggest lower house in the democratic world. I agree that the stuffing of the House of Lords was not acceptable, but looked at on its own, the reduction in the number of MPs had many things to commend it. There is a good argument that we should not be reducing the size of the Commons during and post-Brexit but once we are well past Brexit, I see little justification in not drastically reducing the number of MPs. Oh absolutely - increase Civil Servant powers, reduce accountability, reduce input for the people by reducing their representatives, great stuff! Why not get rid of MPs altogether and just allow unelected 'experts' do the job? Also, does your '4th highest number' bear any relation to reps her head of population? because Ireland has a ratio about 4 times what ours is...
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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Sept 20, 2017 18:44:43 GMT
Oh absolutely - increase Civil Servant powers, reduce accountability, reduce input for the people by reducing their representatives, great stuff! Why not get rid of MPs altogether and just allow unelected 'experts' do the job? Also, does your '4th highest number' bear any relation to reps her head of population? because Ireland has a ratio about 4 times what ours is... There is another very good argument in favour of the reduction in MPs which is that it makes it more likely that the number of English MPs not from the Conservatives or Labour will reduce. We could possibly even get the number below 5 (it is currently at 9) which would be great news. If I'm reading this right (and if not, please do elaborate on your point here), then I just want to say this: "For the purposes of reducing or otherwise the representation of MPs not of the big two parties" is not a good reason for adjusting MP numbers, and would very much be a bad faith attempt at manipulating the electoral system.
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Post by jigger on Sept 20, 2017 19:12:25 GMT
There is another very good argument in favour of the reduction in MPs which is that it makes it more likely that the number of English MPs not from the Conservatives or Labour will reduce. We could possibly even get the number below 5 (it is currently at 9) which would be great news. If I'm reading this right (and if not, please do elaborate on your point here), then I just want to say this: "For the purposes of reducing or otherwise the representation of MPs not of the big two parties" is not a good reason for adjusting MP numbers, and would very much be a bad faith attempt at manipulating the electoral system. I've deleted my post. I was being too partisan for which I apologise.
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Post by minionofmidas on Sept 21, 2017 9:31:47 GMT
There is another very good argument in favour of the reduction in MPs which is that it makes it more likely that the number of English MPs not from the Conservatives or Labour will reduce. We could possibly even get the number below 5 (it is currently at 9) which would be great news. If I'm reading this right (and if not, please do elaborate on your point here), then I just want to say this: "For the purposes of reducing or otherwise the representation of MPs not of the big two parties" is not a good reason for adjusting MP numbers, and would very much be a bad faith attempt at manipulating the electoral system. Although, if you do want to ensure no third party gets into parliament ever because you think this is genuinely bad for stability or whatever, just reduce the number of MPs and constituencies to two.
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Sept 21, 2017 10:49:32 GMT
If I'm reading this right (and if not, please do elaborate on your point here), then I just want to say this: "For the purposes of reducing or otherwise the representation of MPs not of the big two parties" is not a good reason for adjusting MP numbers, and would very much be a bad faith attempt at manipulating the electoral system. Although, if you do want to ensure no third party gets into parliament ever because you think this is genuinely bad for stability or whatever, just reduce the number of MPs and constituencies to two. What has the number of constituencies got to do with the number of parliamentary parties? In the USA there are 435 districts that collectively and consistently only manage to elect candidates from the same 2 parties, whilst in the nearby Yukon there have been 3 parties represented in a legislature with under 20 members ever since partisan elections were introduced. If you really want to guarantee that there are no third party gets in, you can simply declare all other parties illegal – though even jigger, to be fair to him, said he wouldn't go that far and would allow other parties to exist, organise, register and stand candidates. He just that he wishes no party other than the Conservatives and Labour would win any votes (at least in England) because he doesn't personally understand why anybody would vote for any other party. The other method would be to adopt the Bhutanese version of the two-round system, of course.
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Post by greenchristian on Sept 21, 2017 11:20:02 GMT
Having a quick look at the West Midlands, under the 650 seats / 10% tolerance rules, with EAL's figures, here's my initial take:
Unchanged Birmingham (and with a 5% variance only Edgbaston is too small) Coventry (also fine with 5%) Herefordshire (with 5% needs a small shift from Hereford to North Herefordshire) Warwickshire (with 5%, Kenilworth & Southam will need to be increased)
Minor Changes Shropshire needs to lose a bit off North Shropshire (the easiest thing would be to put a ward or two into Shrewsbury & Atcham). With 5%, Ludlow and Telford are also too small. Worcestershire needs to add something to Redditch, probably from Mid-Worcestershire. With 5%, Wyre Forest is a bit too big, but the rest are within quota.
Possibly Major Changes Solihull needs to slightly increase Solihull at the expense of Meriden, but since they're at 1.07 and 1.12 with relatively large wards, doing so might require a ward split. With 5% variance, at least one ward will have to be put in with a constituency across the Solihull border. Numerically, it would make sense for this to be across the Staffordshire border
Definitely Major Changes Staffordshire needs to lose a constituency, even though the only one that's out of the 10% tolerance is Stoke Central.
Walsall and the Black Country between them need to lose one constituency (Walsall's rounded-up quota is 3, but trying to treat it alone gets you - at best - two seats at 0.90 quota and one at 0.87). I can see this one being almost as much of a headache as it was during the actual review.
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Post by minionofmidas on Sept 22, 2017 19:40:08 GMT
Although, if you do want to ensure no third party gets into parliament ever because you think this is genuinely bad for stability or whatever, just reduce the number of MPs and constituencies to two. What has the number of constituencies got to do with the number of parliamentary parties? The first number sets an upper limit to the second number? It does so by definition? Obviously, this applies only to one election. Over several elections, the maximum number of different parties to win a seat is of course (number of constituencies) * (number of elections held). Why do I have to explain a corny joke to you?
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Sept 22, 2017 19:44:20 GMT
What has the number of constituencies got to do with the number of parliamentary parties? The first number sets an upper limit to the second number? It does so by definition? [ ...] Why do I have to explain a corny joke to you? Yes, I suppose it does. My point was that the opposite is not true, i.e. a huge legislature doesn't necessary mean you end up with a plethora of parties. That means there isn't a correlation between the two factors. In the extremely unlikely event the number of constituencies were reduced to two, it's probable that both seats would be won by the same party... and of course in any case, parliamentary proceedings themselves would turn into a farce. You didn't but you have nonetheless just chosen to do so.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 25, 2017 11:39:41 GMT
Moving into North London, Islington is not only spot on for two seats but the current seats are within quota so we can leave well alone. Haringey (2.12), Enfield (2.75) and Barnet (2.13) (the old London North European constituency) are together bang on for eight seats as they have now. The devil here will be in the detail as the Enfield seats are all undersized and ward sizes (especially in Barnet) make things tricky. There really isn't much point speculating about what would be possible here until we have ward numbers. EAL has of necessity (because only constituency level figures are availble) grouped Camden and Brent together for 4.63 quotas. It looks very much like Camden alone would be good for two quotas which means basically returning to the 1997-2010 boundaries there (ie Hampstead gains Highgate and Gospel Oak). That leaves Brent out on a limb which may be solved by linking it with Harrow but the five Harrow/Hillingdon seats are all currently in quota. Furterhmore we come up against the West Central area with a quota of 4.465. It seems to make sense then to treat Brent/Camden and Westminster/Kensington/Hammersmith as asingle unit with a quota of 9.1. This raises the likelihood of there being some kind of 'Brent South & Westminster North' seat which may not be as bad as it sounds as long as you don't call it that (Queen's Park would work for me). Again there's not much point working out many more details than that without the ward figures Continuing my musings here, we encounter a little bit of a conundrum in Outer West London. As mentioned above Harrow/Hillingdon is spot on for 5 seats and in fact all the five current seats are within quota. Ealing alone is good for three seats as now though Southall is well below quota and adding another ward from one of the other Ealing seats would probably put that seat below quota. Meanwhile Hounslow has a massive 2.31 quotas and losing a single ward to one of the Ealing seats would not be enough to rectify this. It looks therefore that you would need to take all these four boroughs together with a total quota of 10.235. I shall return to this area later..
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 25, 2017 11:52:45 GMT
In South London we can note that Sutton, like Islington, is in the happy position whereby it is good for two whole seats and both the current seats are in quota so we can leave well alone there. The three seats in Kingston/Richmond are badly oversized with an overall quota of 3.394 and Lambeth/Southwark has a quota of 5.665. Merton and Wandsworth between the two areas is good for 5 quotas as now, but only Mitcham & Morden could be left unchanged. Therefore you need to treat the whole of this area as a single unit with almost exactly the right numbers for 14 seats - a gain of one.
The four boroughs covering Kentish London together have a quota of 10.551 which is not enough to sustain the 11 seats it has currently (technically it is as the average size is 0.959 of a quota but the maths are unlikely to allow it). Meanwhile Croydon's three seats have a combined quota of 3.477 so it makes perfect sense to link these areas to retain the same total of 14 seats in the area but with a cross borough Bromley/Croydon seat being created, presumably centred on Crystal Palace (though a 'New Addington & Biggin Hill' seat could be an ..erm interesting alternative)
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 25, 2017 12:02:22 GMT
Based on the above London will have gained a total of two seats with one extra seat in the East End and one in South West London to take the total to 75. IN fact the region as a whole is entitled to 75.566 seats and if these things are going to be calculated on a regional basis as now then it id probably going to require 76 seats. The answer to this would be to move Twickenham into the group of Outer West London boroughs. The remaining area of SW London would still be able to sustain 13 seats without any difficulty. The difficulty would still like in West London. Adding Twickenham to Hounslow et al would still only produce a total quota of 11.39 which is not enough to sustain 12 seats. In this case it would be necessary to add at least one and if possible two wards from Brent and also one from Barnet (practically this can only be Edgware ward and this might in fact make it easier to draw seats of the right size within Barnet. Effectively this means that the whole of London North of the Thames and West of the Lea (with the exception of Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets) would be considered together for 29 seats
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Post by akmd on Sept 25, 2017 13:36:52 GMT
Interesting stuff as always, Pete. What would be the partisan effects of all this?
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 25, 2017 14:04:03 GMT
Interesting stuff as always, Pete. What would be the partisan effects of all this? Hard to say without having worked out too much of the detail. As far as the Essex end of things go, where I have done a bit more detail, my favoured boundaries around Havering should translate Labour Dagenham & Rainham into Conservative Hornchurch and the boundary changes to Chingford should be helpful but its a sad sign of the times that a seat comprising all of Woodford with Chingford would now be a marginal. In West Central there are all kinds of permutations and it shouldn't be difficult to turn Kensington blue but one now needs to worry about Cities, such I'd have to worry about the effects of adding Church Street along with St John's Wood
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 30, 2017 23:09:57 GMT
Sussex can be treated as a whole for 17 seats (+1) with a cross county seat needed (West Sussex has 8.77 quotas and East Sussex 8.39). It was suggested upthread that both Hove and Pavilion could remain unchanged and that is true but it seems to me the best approach is to cross the county boundary in the area of the conurbation, though other possibilities obviously exist.
Starting in the East, Hastings & Rye is just over quota which is easily rectified by returning to the pre-2010 boundaries and removing Brede Valley (which would also remove Amber Rudd's majority). Eastbourne is also over quota and that is also easily resolved by the removal of Willingdon (bringing the boundaries of the constituency into line with the local authority).
Bexhill & Battle is somewhat oversized and will be more so with the addition of Brede Valley so would need to lose the two Heathfield wards and Cross in Hand/Five Ashes back to Wealden (again more or less restoring the pre-2010 boundaries). Wealden would then need to lose a chunk of territory to the south inlcuding Hailsham, Hellingly and Chiddingly. This territory together with Willingdon would be added to Lewes which in turn would lose the towns of Newhaven and Seaford.
Newhaven and Seaford would join Peacehaven in the successor to the Brighton Kemptown seat. To make way for them Moulsecoomb and Queens Park would be removed. The seat would therefore include relatively little of Brighton - Rottingdean and Woodingdean are somewhat separate from the main built up area and fit well enough with the other areas - East Brighton not so much, but it will need to be included for the numbers. I estimate the removal of Moulsecoomb and Queens Park would remove most, but not all, of Labour's current majority in Kemptown while the adition of Newhaven and Seaford would create a Tory majority of several thousand. However there was obviously tactical voting for the Lib Dems in these areas and the true Labour strength, especially in Newhaven, is much greater so this still could be a marginal. The name would need to change and I would suggest the slightly controversial 'Seahaven' Moulsecoomb and Queens Park would then be added to Brighton Pavilion which in turn would lose Patcham and Withdean. The Greens and Labour were probably about neck and neck on these boundaries in June but obviously with no Green candidate in Kemptown this understates their support and this would probably still be safe for Lucas as long as she's around, otherwise a very safe Labour seat.
Patcham and Withdean are then added to Hove which would lose wards in the West to the cross-county seat. The two Portslade wards are not enough on their own unfortunately so another ward would need to be removed in addition. Hangleton & Knoll would be the best candidate but may be too large in which case Wish would have to move (a better solution here would be to split Hangleton and Knoll along Hangleton Road with Hangleton itself moving out with Portslade and 'Knoll' staying in with Hove. Anyway, Portslade and one other Hove ward will join the whole of the Adur district in a new Shoreham seat (shorn of all Worthing wards). Had I been doing this exercise a year ago I would be congratulating myself on translating Hove into almost a safe Tory seat again while causing no great problems for Tim Loughton in Shoreham. In the event, Hove is still a safe Labour seat on these boundaries and Shoreham would also be a Labour seat based on June's numbers
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 30, 2017 23:35:43 GMT
The four Worthing wards currently in Worthing East & Shoreham would combine with Worthing West which would lose the Arun wards to the West and also two Worthing wards of Durrington and Northbrook. We now come to the new, extra seat. Bognore Regis & Littlehampton is only a little over quota but it is over and cannot survive unchanged. There is only one rural ward between the two urban centres and to remove one ward would involve either splitting Littlehampton or removing a ward (Bersted or Pagham) which are integral parts of Bognor. The solution here is to split the seat into two parts. Littlehampton will be joined by the territory removed from Worthing West (Rustington, Ferring etc and the two Worthing wards mentioned above) and the rural ward of Yapton from BR&L and also from the Arundel & South Downs seat the wards of Angmering & Findon, Arundel and Barnham. Apart from the two Worthing wards this will be entirely contained within the Arun district. Not being a fan of double barreled names this should be called either Arundel or Littlehampton and I favour the largest town, so go with Littlehampton which might please Alec Pimkin (or perhaps not).
The Bognor Regis seat now without Littlehampton and Yapton must move West to take on new voters and I suggest here appending the Southern, coastal areas of the Chichester seat - Selsey, the Witterings etc. This does have a certain coherence though admittedly communications between the two parts of the seat are not great. Chichester would then move North to reclaim the three rural wards which are currently in the Arundel & SD seat. This does leave Chichester itself in a somewhat peripheral position within its own constituency, with the Chichester bypass forming part of the boudary between this seat and Bognor Regis.
There is rather little of the Arundel & South Downs seat left at this point having removed the eponymous town and all those wards which are in the Arun and Chichester districts. Additionally I propose removing the Cowfold, Shermanbury and West Grinstead ward to Horsham (which in turn loses the three Mid Sussex wards). To replace all the lost ground this seat will need to move further into Mid Sussex district and take Bolney and the six wards covering the town of Burgess Hill. This is now a much less sprawling seat and contained within only two districts now rather than four (basically covering the southern portions of Horsham and mid Sussex districts). The name could be cut down to 'South Downs' but this is unsatisfactory as that covers a much larger area and also has the potential for confusion with the Northern Ireland constituency. Burgess Hill will be by far the largest town but is in a peripheral position. The best (least bad?) name here then may be one that was mooted once before for this seat, namely Chanctonbury.
What remians of Mid Sussex following the removal of Bolney and Burgess Hill can then be augmented by the three MId Sussex wards which are currently in the Horsham seat. Mid Sussex is a crap name for a constituency and this seat now excludes enough of the district of that name to justify a change of name to East Grinstead (actually I feel similarly towards Wealden and feel that could now be renamed as Crowborough)
Crawley is unchanged
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Oct 1, 2017 16:14:40 GMT
Some good suggestions for Sussex there, Pete, but as you know I don't regard a seat that's partly in West Sussex and partly in East Sussex as a cross-county constituency.
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