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Post by afleitch on Sept 13, 2016 13:12:26 GMT
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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Sept 13, 2016 13:15:26 GMT
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Post by islington on Sept 13, 2016 13:37:46 GMT
Could someone like islington explain to me why they value ward boundaries above all else. Particularly when, as in Sheffield or B'ham, the wards no longer exist. (weary sigh)
Well, OK, since you ask. But we have been through this several times.
It's not wards as such. The point, for me, is that I want the boundaries drawn in conformity with some kind of pre-existing boundaries. That is, I don't want what might be termed 'free-hand' boundary drawing in which the line can be put anywhere. This is partly because completely unrestricted drawing, in its worst form, can lead to the type of grotesque gerrymanders that we see in the US, which would be impossible if some pre-existing boundary had to be adhered to; and partly because, by creating almost unlimited possibilities, it would mean that boundary-drawing would become the preserve of professional experts with sophisticated mapping technology and granular data sources - everyone else (including us on this Forum) would effectively be shut out of the process.
The use of wards is essentially a pragmatic choice. If parishes or Scottish-style community councils covered the entire country, they might well be a preferable alternative, especially since they might be more permanent features of the administrative landscape than wards are. But wards have two very valuable characteristics: they uniformly cover the entire UK, and they fit exactly into LA boundaries (unlike, say, postcode districts, which might otherwise be a possibility). So, on the whole, they are the best unit available.
As for the use of wards that have been changed, I think this is simply a result of needing to have a clear cut-off date on which all the numbers are based. Obviously, some of the wards will be changed during the currency of these boundaries and I accept this is an inconvenience, but this is hardly a new issue. In fact, it is arguably less of a problem now that it was previously, because the inconvenience will apply for one GE only following which the seat boundaries will be revised again and the new wards will be used (whereas previously, when reviews were much less frequent, a mismatch between ward and Parliamentary boundaries might persist for decades).
Finally, I don't think the door should be completely closed on ward splits. My argument is that if it is possible to propose a legal, workable plan without splits, then that is what the Commission should do (and has done). It is open to respondents to propose alternatives and they can include ward splits if they wish. I do think, however, that the onus is on anyone proposing a ward split to demonstrate that it results in a substantially (not marginally) better map than the best that can be achieved without a split.
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Jack
Reform Party
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Post by Jack on Sept 13, 2016 13:50:57 GMT
Can't get on the boundary commission website. Does anyone know if Walsall North still exists?
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 13, 2016 14:02:17 GMT
Can't get on the boundary commission website. Does anyone know if Walsall North still exists? Cut up into three. Walsall Central has been created and takes Blakenall and Birchills-Leamore. Bloxwich East and West go into Aldridge, Brownhills and Bloxwich. Shortheath, Willenhall North and Willenhall South go into Wednesfield and Willenhall.
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mondialito
Labour
Everything is horribly, brutally possible.
Posts: 4,924
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Post by mondialito on Sept 13, 2016 14:03:46 GMT
If they do get rejected at the 2nd time of asking, will there be an aceptance amongst Tories that these guidelines are a load of crap?
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Post by Right Leaning on Sept 13, 2016 14:04:33 GMT
Can't get on the boundary commission website. Does anyone know if Walsall North still exists? Walsall North does not exist under the plans, Bloxwich E & W go into Aldridge Brownhills, Short Heath and Willenhall N & S into Wednesfield & Willenhall (mainly ex Wolverhampton NE), and Birchills Leamore & Blakenhall go to Walsall Central (mainly ex Walsall South).
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Jack
Reform Party
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Post by Jack on Sept 13, 2016 14:05:50 GMT
Can't get on the boundary commission website. Does anyone know if Walsall North still exists? Cut up into three. Walsall Central has been created and takes Blakenall and Birchills-Leamore. Bloxwich East and West go into Aldridge, Brownhills and Bloxwich. Shortheath, Willenhall North and Willenhall South go into Wednesfield and Willenhall. Thank you! I knew you would have the answer.
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mondialito
Labour
Everything is horribly, brutally possible.
Posts: 4,924
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Post by mondialito on Sept 13, 2016 14:13:14 GMT
As I said above, if these boundaries are rejected in 2018, there will need to be new rules for drawing boundaries.
Or a return to the old ones...
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Post by loderingo on Sept 13, 2016 14:17:42 GMT
Having read all the English and Welsh proposals here are my thoughts:
- The Welsh commission has done a much better job than the English one as they have been able to work from first principles and forget about the existing constituencies - The English commission has been inconsistent - in some areas they have overly focused on keeping existing constituencies e.g. moving a Babergh ward rather than an Ipswich ward into Ipswich so as to keep Central Suffolk unchanged, but in other areas they have gone for unnecessarily disruptive change e.g. Nottingham and Bournemouth - In some areas, they keep making minor changes when they need to be more radical e.g. the Henley and Thame seat gets worse each review. - They have managed to create a "Thames Banks" constituency as Mapledurham has no road access to Reading West - They clearly haven't learned from last time that putting bits of N Yorks into W Yorks won't go down well, especially a village with no road access! - I don't understand why they haven't split wards in places like Birmingham rather than putting random bits of Walsall in with Erdington
Jack - Walsall N is a goner. There is an expended Aldridge-Brownhills, a Walsall constituency and then the other bits of the borough go in a Wolverhampton constituency and a Birmingham constituency.
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Post by Andrew_S on Sept 13, 2016 14:30:58 GMT
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Post by Andrew_S on Sept 13, 2016 14:51:10 GMT
Looks like a third of Labour's 204 seats would be vulnerable to a swing of 8%.
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Post by afleitch on Sept 13, 2016 15:01:49 GMT
If they do get rejected at the 2nd time of asking, will there be an aceptance amongst Tories that these guidelines are a load of crap? The problem is, the guidelines don't work the way the MP's think they should work. And the Commission even tried to get them to work they way they thought the MP's wanted them to work by recommending a little more discrection and that too was rejected. Ultimately you can't fix the fact that Labour voters live in urban areas, suburbs can be more mixed, rural areas are Tory and the Lib Dems wear different hats depending on each. They also completely fail to understand that at the start of a review seats are pretty much as close to the quota as possible for each cut of the cake. They get worse the older the seats are which causes much 'boo hiss' but MP's are too dense to look back to the point that they were drawn up. So they will get angrier each and every year because they will keep diverging and you've changed the system of registration which makes them even worse. You can't fix the fact that people move. You can just have the old rules, cut your seats which affects the quota and do it every five, seven, ten years whatever.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,651
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 13, 2016 15:05:25 GMT
Owen Jones has called the proposals ruthless Tory gerrymandering. Did he call the 2005 review ruthless Labour gerrymandering?
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,651
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 13, 2016 15:10:18 GMT
... is not unchanged: it gains Filey. Oh yes, right in the corner, just the one ward. Easily missed with the way the map jumped as I tried to scroll it. Clearer on the interactive site where you can selectively turn boundaries on and off.
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sirbenjamin
IFP
True fame is reading your name written in graffiti, but without the words 'is a wanker' after it.
Posts: 4,979
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Post by sirbenjamin on Sept 13, 2016 15:19:43 GMT
Hours into reading the proposals, something suddenly dawned on me.
That guideline about respecting existing constituency boundaries where appropriate - their implementation has made no distinction between existing constituencies which are elegant, tidy and, importantly, worth preserving, and those which are weak and incongruous. None whatsoever.
This is a crucial failing as it prioritises preserving an existing bad seat over creating a new and better one.
Thus 'Suffolk Central and Ipswich North' is unchanged, despite being a typical 'mid' seat made up of odds and ends, with the outer Ipswich bits having absolutely nothing in common with the rural wards on the Norfolk border. One ugly seat is preserved in order that other ugly seats may be created, when there was an opportunity to create better, or at least no worse, seats in that area.
Similarly Chingford and Woodford Green is relatively unscathed with surrounding constituencies looking a bit hacky, when the seat was one of two ill-fitting cross-borough hacks to start with.
For me, the order of priority should be:
- preserving existing GOOD seats - respecting LA boundaries; and only then - preserving existing rubbishy seats.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,651
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 13, 2016 15:20:56 GMT
They also completely fail to understand that at the start of a review seats are pretty much as close to the quota as possible for each cut of the cake. They get worse the older the seats are which causes much 'boo hiss' but MP's are too dense to look back to the point that they were drawn up. So they will get angrier each and every year because they will keep diverging and you've changed the system of registration which makes them even worse. You can't fix the fact that people move. You can just have the old rules, cut your seats which affects the quota and do it every five, seven, ten years whatever. I almost crashed my car as I screamed at the radio earlier at Corbyn complaining about "out-of-date data". The data's only two months out of date, for F***'s sake (December 2015 register, review started March 2016), the 2005 review used data that was FIVE YEARS out of date and was ten years out of date when the new boundaries were used (2000 register, 2005 review, 2010 election). Tell Corbyn we can use this December's register and start all over again next March, and we'll rip his balls off if he complains about out-of-date data.
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Post by greenchristian on Sept 13, 2016 15:38:47 GMT
Could someone like islington explain to me why they value ward boundaries above all else. Particularly when, as in Sheffield or B'ham, the wards no longer exist. (weary sigh)
Well, OK, since you ask. But we have been through this several times.
It's not wards as such. The point, for me, is that I want the boundaries drawn in conformity with some kind of pre-existing boundaries. That is, I don't want what might be termed 'free-hand' boundary drawing in which the line can be put anywhere. This is partly because completely unrestricted drawing, in its worst form, can lead to the type of grotesque gerrymanders that we see in the US, which would be impossible if some pre-existing boundary had to be adhered to; and partly because, by creating almost unlimited possibilities, it would mean that boundary-drawing would become the preserve of professional experts with sophisticated mapping technology and granular data sources - everyone else (including us on this Forum) would effectively be shut out of the process.
The use of wards is essentially a pragmatic choice. If parishes or Scottish-style community councils covered the entire country, they might well be a preferable alternative, especially since they might be more permanent features of the administrative landscape than wards are. But wards have two very valuable characteristics: they uniformly cover the entire UK, and they fit exactly into LA boundaries (unlike, say, postcode districts, which might otherwise be a possibility). So, on the whole, they are the best unit available.
As for the use of wards that have been changed, I think this is simply a result of needing to have a clear cut-off date on which all the numbers are based. Obviously, some of the wards will be changed during the currency of these boundaries and I accept this is an inconvenience, but this is hardly a new issue. In fact, it is arguably less of a problem now that it was previously, because the inconvenience will apply for one GE only following which the seat boundaries will be revised again and the new wards will be used (whereas previously, when reviews were much less frequent, a mismatch between ward and Parliamentary boundaries might persist for decades).
Finally, I don't think the door should be completely closed on ward splits. My argument is that if it is possible to propose a legal, workable plan without splits, then that is what the Commission should do (and has done). It is open to respondents to propose alternatives and they can include ward splits if they wish. I do think, however, that the onus is on anyone proposing a ward split to demonstrate that it results in a substantially (not marginally) better map than the best that can be achieved without a split. The fundamental flaw in your argument is that polling districts fulfil all the criteria you praise in wards, and it has been pretty clearly stated that ward splits would only be considered if they were split strictly by polling districts. In urban areas, where wards frequently cross natural community boundaries, polling districts rarely do.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2016 16:17:24 GMT
Tristram Hunt calls the review "grotesque gerrymandering" asking "what next, abolishing Labour seats?"
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Post by islington on Sept 13, 2016 16:37:40 GMT
(weary sigh)
Well, OK, since you ask. But we have been through this several times.
It's not wards as such. The point, for me, is that I want the boundaries drawn in conformity with some kind of pre-existing boundaries. That is, I don't want what might be termed 'free-hand' boundary drawing in which the line can be put anywhere. This is partly because completely unrestricted drawing, in its worst form, can lead to the type of grotesque gerrymanders that we see in the US, which would be impossible if some pre-existing boundary had to be adhered to; and partly because, by creating almost unlimited possibilities, it would mean that boundary-drawing would become the preserve of professional experts with sophisticated mapping technology and granular data sources - everyone else (including us on this Forum) would effectively be shut out of the process.
The use of wards is essentially a pragmatic choice. If parishes or Scottish-style community councils covered the entire country, they might well be a preferable alternative, especially since they might be more permanent features of the administrative landscape than wards are. But wards have two very valuable characteristics: they uniformly cover the entire UK, and they fit exactly into LA boundaries (unlike, say, postcode districts, which might otherwise be a possibility). So, on the whole, they are the best unit available.
As for the use of wards that have been changed, I think this is simply a result of needing to have a clear cut-off date on which all the numbers are based. Obviously, some of the wards will be changed during the currency of these boundaries and I accept this is an inconvenience, but this is hardly a new issue. In fact, it is arguably less of a problem now that it was previously, because the inconvenience will apply for one GE only following which the seat boundaries will be revised again and the new wards will be used (whereas previously, when reviews were much less frequent, a mismatch between ward and Parliamentary boundaries might persist for decades).
Finally, I don't think the door should be completely closed on ward splits. My argument is that if it is possible to propose a legal, workable plan without splits, then that is what the Commission should do (and has done). It is open to respondents to propose alternatives and they can include ward splits if they wish. I do think, however, that the onus is on anyone proposing a ward split to demonstrate that it results in a substantially (not marginally) better map than the best that can be achieved without a split. The fundamental flaw in your argument is that polling districts fulfil all the criteria you praise in wards, and it has been pretty clearly stated that ward splits would only be considered if they were split strictly by polling districts. In urban areas, where wards frequently cross natural community boundaries, polling districts rarely do. Actually, I don't have a problem with the use of PDs as such, but I'd have to enter a few provisos.
First, it would need a change in the law because (unlike wards) they are not currently listed as 'local government boundaries'. I shouldn't be against such a change, although I'd suggest it ought to be done in a way that gives priority to wards so that PDs are invoked only where wards present a difficulty for some reason.
Second, I'd question your statement about their following natural community boundaries. This is based only on a quick glance at the PD mapping now made available by the BCE, but my initial impression is that in many cases the boundaries are all over the place.
Third, given the existing limited role of PDs it's fine for them to be drawn by LAs but if they are to become more important I'd want some kind of independent oversight of the process, by the LGBCE presumably, to ensure against politically-motivated boundaries (for the same reason as LAs are no longer given free rein to draw their own wards).
Fourth, if PDs are to be recognized as building blocks the mapping and electorate data should be made publicly available from the outset of any review process.
Finally, I'd repeat that the acid test is whether the use of PDs would enable us to produce markedly better maps. I remain to be convinced of this, but am open to persuasion.
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