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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Mar 4, 2017 11:20:20 GMT
Forest of Dean. Makes things easier around Gloucester. ;-) Being able to combine the Forest with bits of Herefordshire, or even Monmouthshire, would make the rest of Gloucestershire much easier to deal with. I have no qualms about constituency boundaries crossing local authority boundaries in general, but I will contend that it is a bad idea to have them cross provincial boundaries...
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Post by mrpastelito on Mar 4, 2017 12:43:19 GMT
Being able to combine the Forest with bits of Herefordshire, or even Monmouthshire, would make the rest of Gloucestershire much easier to deal with. I have no qualms about constituency boundaries crossing local authority boundaries in general, but I will contend that it is a bad idea to have them cross provincial boundaries... Cornish nationalists agree
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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Mar 4, 2017 15:28:36 GMT
I have no qualms about constituency boundaries crossing local authority boundaries in general, but I will contend that it is a bad idea to have them cross provincial boundaries... Cornish nationalists agree Cornwall isn't its own province.
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Post by mrpastelito on Mar 4, 2017 15:47:53 GMT
Cornish nationalists agree Cornwall isn't its own province. You tell them ... I'll look on
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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Mar 4, 2017 15:50:54 GMT
Cornwall isn't its own province. You tell them ... I'll look on I was kinda hoping your reply would've been "Cornish Nationalists disagree".
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 4, 2017 16:30:32 GMT
You tell them ... I'll look on I was kinda hoping your reply would've been "Cornish Nationalists disagree". Are there enough for that?
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Post by mrpastelito on Mar 4, 2017 17:13:40 GMT
I was kinda hoping your reply would've been "Cornish Nationalists disagree". Are there enough for that? There are certainly more than vote Mebyon Kernow tbf.
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YL
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Post by YL on Mar 5, 2017 20:33:33 GMT
Please tell me at least someone threw the Scilly Isles to the wolves and put forward a valid Cornwall only suggestion. They didn't quite go that far, but a number pointed out that without the Isles, Cornwall proper could be split into 5 constituencies within quota. Others demanded Cornwall be treated separately just as Wales and Scotland and indeed the Isle of Wight are ('Cornwall only has about 10 miles land boundary!'). I did find one which suggested that Scilly could be put with the Isle of Wight. (Unfortunately I think the wording of the Wight exception means the BCE aren't allowed to do that!)
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Post by greenhert on Mar 5, 2017 22:37:03 GMT
That is correct, YL, and in any case the Isles of Scilly are too far from anywhere on the British mainland except Cornwall, which is why they have always been with the St Ives constituency.
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Post by mrpastelito on Mar 5, 2017 22:51:09 GMT
That is correct, YL , and in any case the Isles of Scilly are too far from anywhere on the British mainland except Cornwall, which is why they have always been with the St Ives constituency. They could join the Channel Islands.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2017 0:02:23 GMT
That is correct, YL , and in any case the Isles of Scilly are too far from anywhere on the British mainland except Cornwall, which is why they have always been with the St Ives constituency. They could join the Channel Islands. I suspect the last thing Channel Islanders want at the moment is any closer ties with the United Kingdom.
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Post by John Chanin on Mar 6, 2017 1:02:49 GMT
They could join the Channel Islands. I suspect the last thing Channel Islanders want at the moment is any closer ties with the United Kingdom. That's very interesting. Are they in the EU? If so how does that work when the UK leaves? I know they are quasi-independent tax havens under the "British crown", ie a type of colony.
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Post by mrpastelito on Mar 6, 2017 11:15:08 GMT
They could join the Channel Islands. I suspect the last thing Channel Islanders want at the moment is any closer ties with the United Kingdom. Yes, but Scillonians might want looser ties with the UK! Alternatively they could just accept that they were named after a double roundabout in Surrey and be absorbed into Esher and Walton
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Mar 9, 2017 23:18:02 GMT
I agree that increasing the tolerance to 7% isn't the way of solving the problem in places with big wards like Sheffield. As that plan demonstrates (though it's possible there's a better one) it still forces you to come up with seats which you'd never even think of proposing (like that Hillsborough) if it weren't for them being one of the few combinations of wards actually in the window. It eases the situation a bit, and at least you don't seem to be forced to grab random Barnsley and Rotherham wards to make the numbers work, but it's still not working very well. I'm still of the view that the way to make for better boundaries in big ward areas is to accept limited ward splitting. However, I am in favour of increasing the tolerance where it allows the Commission to reduce the number of cross-county constituencies and to allow most counties to stand on their own. (I'm basically talking ceremonial counties here; I'm not bothered about keeping Telford & Wrekin separate from Shropshire UA or anything like that.) Most cross-county constituencies are, in my view, not very satisfactory, and furthermore doing this would make for much more manageable review areas for the consultation. I don't think people in Hertfordshire should have to worry about what's been proposed in Norfolk if they're going to make a suggestion for their home area. (OK, that particular boundary crossing was unnecessary even under the current rules, but there are other examples, and the change I'm suggesting would discourage the Commission from doing it.) And it would satisfy the Cornish without actually turning Cornwall into another special case. Yes, I think it's probably the cross-county seats that are the worst element of the rules, because I don't think anybody actively likes them. Particularly since there's a much easier way to do it whilst keeping electorates equal - have one big nationwide review, then steal the Australian system and just remove a seat from one county and give it to another when the electorate shifts enough to justify it. That'd be much quicker and less controversial than nationwide reviews.
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Post by islington on Mar 10, 2017 11:19:30 GMT
But do we have an agreed definition of what is a 'cross-county seat'? My idea of such a seat, for instance, would not be the same as that of an adherent of pre-1974 counties.
The most clear-cut examples are cases where a seat combines parts of two separate two-tier counties. The BCE has an alarming number of these, but most of them could be avoided even within the 5% constraint. I ended up with only four (the counties paired were Leics/Notts, Cambs/Norfolk, Kent/E Sussex, Staffs/Warwks) and one of these was a result of a choice to treat Coventry with the old W Mids met area; it would have been perfectly possible to treat it with Warwks instead and respect the Warwks/Staffs border. So you could certainly get the number of these seats down to three.
But is it also a cross-county seat if you combine part of a two-tier county with an adjoining UA? I imagine not: thus, a seat covering (say) part of Southend UA with adjacent bits of Essex would not be a cross-county seat, presumably on the basis that Southend, although now a separate authority, is in some sense still regarded as part of Essex. Even where a whole county has been divided into UAs, such as Beds or Berks, we assume that the former county maintains some some kind of afterlife. Or do we distinguish in some way between Berks, where the UAs are technically not counties and former county still officially exists, in some nebulous form, and all other areas where the UAs have formal county status? And does it make a difference if the former county was purely a post-1974 creation without a long history on its side? For instance, I have a seat combining Hartlepool UA (formerly in Cleveland) with a ward of Durham UA - is that a cross-county seat? And are metro boroughs treated the same as UAs? If so, which 'county' is, say, Sunderland MB part of? Durham, or Tyne and Wear? Is it 'cross-county' to combine wards of Sunderland MB with wards of Durham UA? Suppose we had a 'Tyne Bridge' seat taking in parts of Newcastle and Gateshead MBs (both in Tyne & Wear, after all). And there's London - is it 'cross-county' to combine parts of Tower Hamlets (historically Middlesex) and Newham (historically Essex)?
Sorry if this was a bit of a rant, but if we're to set aside the 5% rule to avoid cross-county seats, then we need complete clarity about exactly what a 'county' is.
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Mar 10, 2017 11:41:39 GMT
But is it also a cross-county seat if you combine part of a two-tier county with an adjoining UA? I imagine not: thus, a seat covering (say) part of Southend UA with adjacent bits of Essex would not be a cross-county seat, presumably on the basis that Southend, although now a separate authority, is in some sense still regarded as part of Essex. Even where a whole county has been divided into UAs, such as Beds or Berks, we assume that the former county maintains some some kind of afterlife. I've had to snip this because it turns into a total ramble. The Commissioners are quite obviously using ceremonial counties as the initial basis for sub-regions, so the creation of UAs over the past 21 years is an irrelevance. Whilst this may not be as satisfactory to those of us who would prefer to use traditional counties, it is a darn sight better than ignoring lieutenancy areas. Within London I think the only border that needs any attention is the Thames. It'd be very difficult to aim to deliberately draw seats entirely within Middlesex or 'metro Kent', for example, but you still might end up with a few through serendipitous luck. That said, because of the rules (and my own lack of determination, I suppose) I've ended up with loads of cross-county constituencies by any metric. In trying to avoid a Worcs-Warks one in the West Midlands and a Leics-Notts one in the East Midlands, I ended up crossing most other county borders within those regions. I accept in particular Dorset-Wilts, Kent-Sussex and – even though nobody here seems to agree with me – Herts-Cambs seats as inevitable on the current figures.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 10, 2017 11:43:19 GMT
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Post by islington on Mar 10, 2017 12:22:18 GMT
I've had to snip this because it turns into a total ramble. The Commissioners are quite obviously using ceremonial counties as the initial basis for sub-regions, so the creation of UAs over the past 21 years is an irrelevance. Whilst this may not be as satisfactory to those of us who would prefer to use traditional counties, it is a darn sight better than ignoring lieutenancy areas. Within London I think the only border that needs any attention is the Thames. It'd be very difficult to aim to deliberately draw seats entirely within Middlesex or 'metro Kent', for example, but you still might end up with a few through serendipitous luck. - "it turns into a total ramble". Sorry about that. We all need a good rant now and then.
- "The Commissioners are quite obviously using ceremonial counties as the initial basis for sub-regions" Are we sure about this? Have they said so? I can see some evidence for it in the South West, where they've clearly disregarded the unlamented post-1974 creation of Avon; but in East Mids, their treatment of Rutland suggests that they are strongly influenced by its inclusion in post-1974 Leics. And I'd also point out that two of the 'ceremonial counties' (actually lieutenancies) are split between the regions used by BCE (N Yorks between NE and Y&H; Lincs between Y&H and E Mids). This doesn't contradict Foggy's point, because he was talking about sub-regions rather than regions; but it does call into question how relevant the lieutenancies are to this exercise. As far as I can see, you could equally argue that the BCE is basing its work on the post-1974 counties, which would mean that each county falls wholly within a region. On this basis, the ignoring of Avon would be treated as a one-off exception (and there's also the treatment of Wirral with Cheshire, which can't really be justified in terms either of lieutenancies or post-1974 counties, but which makes perfect sense on the ground and implies, in county terms, a harking back to pre-1974 borders).
So unless the BCE has actually said so somewhere, I'm not sure the evidence is there to say that lieutenancies are being used; it looks to me like a more ad hoc and pragmatic approach. So I think the underlying question, of what, exactly, is a 'county', remains on the table.
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Mar 10, 2017 12:56:59 GMT
- "it turns into a total ramble". Sorry about that. We all need a good rant now and then.
- "The Commissioners are quite obviously using ceremonial counties as the initial basis for sub-regions" Are we sure about this? Have they said so? I can see some evidence for it in the South West, where they've clearly disregarded the unlamented post-1974 creation of Avon; but in East Mids, their treatment of Rutland suggests that they are strongly influenced by its inclusion in post-1974 Leics. And I'd also point out that two of the 'ceremonial counties' (actually lieutenancies) are split between the regions used by BCE (N Yorks between NE and Y&H; Lincs between Y&H and E Mids). This doesn't contradict Foggy's point, because he was talking about sub-regions rather than regions; but it does call into question how relevant the lieutenancies are to this exercise. As far as I can see, you could equally argue that the BCE is basing its work on the post-1974 counties, which would mean that each county falls wholly within a region. On this basis, the ignoring of Avon would be treated as a one-off exception (and there's also the treatment of Wirral with Cheshire, which can't really be justified in terms either of lieutenancies or post-1974 counties, but which makes perfect sense on the ground and implies, in county terms, a harking back to pre-1974 borders).
So unless the BCE has actually said so somewhere, I'm not sure the evidence is there to say that lieutenancies are being used; it looks to me like a more ad hoc and pragmatic approach. So I think the underlying question, of what, exactly, is a 'county', remains on the table. It's all right. My response wasn't exactly succinct, but the 'what is a county?' rabbit hole feels more appropriate to general discussion about local government rather than one on the drawing up of parliamentary constituencies, which lots of comments on the BCE site have been conflating. I took them to task about Rutland. There has been a campaign to lobby the Commission to keep Melton Mowbray linked with there, so that arrangement will probably continue, but in the initial proposals report it didn't even seem to acknowledge Rutland as a separate county. Less of the 'A word', please. That's a good point about the Wirral, which doesn't occur to me as being distinct from Cheshire. Obviously in the case of Teesside and 'Humberside', regional borders are considered first before county ones are. The only possible reasoning for taking UAs into consideration is to make life easier for MPs and their staff who need to refer different constituents to different councils when they receive correspondence about a local issue. If you have a mix of UAs and two-tier areas, that makes that task slightly more complicated, but it's hardly the most important aspect of seat-building.
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Post by islington on Mar 10, 2017 15:34:09 GMT
My response wasn't exactly succinct, but the 'what is a county?' rabbit hole feels more appropriate to general discussion about local government rather than one on the drawing up of parliamentary constituencies. Less of the 'A word', please. That's a good point about the Wirral, which doesn't occur to me as being distinct from Cheshire. Obviously in the case of Teesside and 'Humberside', regional borders are considered first before county ones are. The only possible reasoning for taking UAs into consideration is to make life easier for MPs and their staff who need to refer different constituents to different councils when they receive correspondence about a local issue. If you have a mix of UAs and two-tier areas, that makes that task slightly more complicated, but it's hardly the most important aspect of seat-building. I'm raising it here because I'm really only interested in the issue insofar as it affects Parliamentary boundaries. So far as the general county debate is concerned, I know it matters a lot to many people and I respect their right to feel strongly about it. But it's a passion I don't share. But I do think the reason cited by Foggy for taking account of UAs is actually a very powerful and important one - it certainly matters much more than ceremonial counties, whose practical importance, unless you're a Lord Lieutenant or are fascinated by the Advisory Committee of JPs, is practically zilch.
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