therealriga
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Post by therealriga on Sept 8, 2017 8:39:28 GMT
Or just go to single-member wards in England and Wales. I don't see the value of multi-member wards under FPTP. Well the UK government is not in charge of local government arrangements in Wales, indeed we may well be moving to stv in Wales for local government, so any suggestion of uniform single member wards is a tad premature. Multi-member wards under STV are fine, indeed that's the whole point of it, so I'd support that. In England, they should split all existing multi-member wards and go for whole election based on single member wards.
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jamie
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Post by jamie on Sept 8, 2017 9:14:59 GMT
There has rightly been much discussion since the general election about the problems of individuals (largely but not only students) being registered in two places simultaneously, something that is only a problem in practice if those individuals actually vote in two places simultaneously. There doesn't seem to be equal concern about the effects of this on apportionment which is hugely relevant in a system where seats are drawn to meet a tight electorate quota and where every double-registered individual skews the figures simply by being double-registered It is somewhat remedied by the fact students disproportionately tend not to register anywhere. Not perfect but I don't think the registration figures are too out of whack.
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Post by John Chanin on Sept 8, 2017 9:20:18 GMT
The advantage of using census data for boundary apportionment is that (a) it is compiled on the same basis nationwide (b) it avoids the double registration problem (c) nationality is collected, so those eligible to vote, whether under present rules, or altered rules in the future, can be calculated. The boundary review can be done automatically once every 10 years as soon as the census data is published.
The second best would be to use electorates as at the last general election. The ease of registration now means that a large number of people only register once an election is called, distorting the figures in non-election years.
I would be in favour of a change in the law which would automatically bring the boundaries into effect, since the process has become so politicised.
I was in favour of the reduction to 600 MPs, but certainly don't feel strongly about it, and in the current position it is a non-starter.
I am in favour of the 5% tolerance, as seats should be equal in size, subject to it being accepted that wards should be split. If the current intolerance to wards being split is retained, then the tolerance should generally be 7.5%, but 10% in metropolitan areas where the 7.5% tolerance is less than the average ward size (only a handful of big cities).
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Harry Hayfield
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Post by Harry Hayfield on Sept 8, 2017 12:04:40 GMT
There has rightly been much discussion since the general election about the problems of individuals (largely but not only students) being registered in two places simultaneously, something that is only a problem in practice if those individuals actually vote in two places simultaneously. There doesn't seem to be equal concern about the effects of this on apportionment which is hugely relevant in a system where seats are drawn to meet a tight electorate quota and where every double-registered individual skews the figures simply by being double-registered Adam Gray very kindly sent me his analysis of the local elections (which includes electorate data) and in Ceredigion the impact of individual registration can be seen in an instant Aberystwyth Bronglais: 942 (2017) vs 1,865 (2012) Aberystwyth Central: 1,231 (2017) vs 2,051 (2012) Aberystwyth North: 1,128 (2017) vs 2,262 (2012) Lampeter: 1,632 (2017) vs 2,291 (2012) Llanbadarn Fawr Sulien: 793 (2017) vs 1,959 (2012)
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 8, 2017 12:30:04 GMT
Scotland is going to be left in an absolute state after this. Say hello to Skye, Lochaber & North Perthshire and Dundee Central & St Andrews... Tay Bridge? Tay Banks?
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 8, 2017 12:36:05 GMT
Anglesey has a higher proportion of Welsh speakers than Bangor thanks to the vastly greater presence of 'outsider' students in the latter. Last time I checked, though significantly Anglicised (especially when compared to the rest of Gwynedd), Bangor is still majority Welsh speaking. In fact, it must be worth noting that Anglesey itself has been seeing an influx of English speakers in recent years, though once again it's still majority Welsh speaking, and I think it has the greatest proportion of Welsh speakers in its population, or at least it did have. Not sure what that bit means. Can you clarify?
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Eastwood
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Post by Eastwood on Sept 8, 2017 13:19:05 GMT
The Islands (Scotland) Bill under debate at Holyrood just now explicitly includes both bridged and tidal islands in its definition of islands. However I don't think it's unreasonable to point out that there is a big difference between Shetland and Ynys Mon. If anything there is an argument to treat Orkney and Shetland separately at Westminster as they are at Holyrood. Fine. 1 non voting Mp each or 1 voting with them together with the mainland. Their choice. You could propose a hybrid system where the size of constituencies is much less important but instead MPs are focussed much more closely on recognisable communities. No need for boundary reviews, just reviews of how much each MP's vote is worth. Each MP gets a vote in proportion with the population of their area such that the MPs for Shetland and Orkney would have votes worth 0.3 whereas a single Isle of Wight MP would have a vote worth 1.6. Most MPs would still have votes worth somewhere between 0.8 and 1.2 but it would allow smaller authorities such as Clackmannanshire, Ynys Mon and Rutland to have their own representatives without skewing the voting process. Would make divisions much more interesting.
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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Sept 8, 2017 14:07:03 GMT
Last time I checked, though significantly Anglicised (especially when compared to the rest of Gwynedd), Bangor is still majority Welsh speaking. In fact, it must be worth noting that Anglesey itself has been seeing an influx of English speakers in recent years, though once again it's still majority Welsh speaking, and I think it has the greatest proportion of Welsh speakers in its population, or at least it did have. Not sure what that bit means. Can you clarify? What I was trying to say was that at some point, the percentage of population who could speak Welsh in Anglesey was higher than it was in any other principal authority area, though going off of 2011 census data this is no longer the case any more, with only 56.1% of its population able to speak Welsh, compared with 57.12% for Ceredigion and 64.34% for Gwynedd; in terms of merely having knowledge of the language, the figures I saw had Gwynedd at 72.91%, and Anglesey at 68.56%.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 8, 2017 16:54:14 GMT
Not sure what that bit means. Can you clarify? What I was trying to say was that at some point, the percentage of population who could speak Welsh in Anglesey was higher than it was in any other principal authority area, though going off of 2011 census data this is no longer the case any more, with only 56.1% of its population able to speak Welsh, compared with 57.12% for Ceredigion and 64.34% for Gwynedd; in terms of merely having knowledge of the language, the figures I saw had Gwynedd at 72.91%, and Anglesey at 68.56%. Ah I thought that might be what you meant, but knew it was incorrect. Not sure Anglesey was ever the most Welsh-speaking county, though pretty close! I blame Edward I for building Beaumaris.
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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Sept 8, 2017 18:20:33 GMT
What I was trying to say was that at some point, the percentage of population who could speak Welsh in Anglesey was higher than it was in any other principal authority area, though going off of 2011 census data this is no longer the case any more, with only 56.1% of its population able to speak Welsh, compared with 57.12% for Ceredigion and 64.34% for Gwynedd; in terms of merely having knowledge of the language, the figures I saw had Gwynedd at 72.91%, and Anglesey at 68.56%. Ah I thought that might be what you meant, but knew it was incorrect. Not sure Anglesey was ever the most Welsh-speaking county, though pretty close! I blame Edward I for building Beaumaris. Eh, could've sworn it was at one point.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 8, 2017 19:38:04 GMT
Ah I thought that might be what you meant, but knew it was incorrect. Not sure Anglesey was ever the most Welsh-speaking county, though pretty close! I blame Edward I for building Beaumaris. Eh, could've sworn it was at one point. Very close in 1891! Cardiganshire 95.2% Meirioneth 94.1% Anglesey 93.7% Caernarfon 89.5% (blame Llandudno!)
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Post by johnloony on Sept 9, 2017 7:01:02 GMT
Could I ask the following? What would be the effect of regional electoral quotas based on that regions population as a percentage of the UK population? For instance Wales has a population of 3.063 million out of a UK population of 65.64 million (4.66%) and therefore the electoral quota for Wales should be 4.66% lower than the UK as a whole (67,930 to 75,080) How on Earth do you get that "therefore"? According to the same logic, England is about 85% of the UK population, therefore the quota for England should be 85% less than th UK as a whole, i.e. about 10,000. Or did you mean something completely different from what you wrote? i think we are still waiting for a translation
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Post by carlton43 on Sept 9, 2017 7:43:28 GMT
How on Earth do you get that "therefore"? According to the same logic, England is about 85% of the UK population, therefore the quota for England should be 85% less than th UK as a whole, i.e. about 10,000. Or did you mean something completely different from what you wrote? i think we are still waiting for a translation Your logic is faultless John.
His statement has no logic, thus he has no reply, because you have identified the inherent utter stupidity of the idea.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Sept 9, 2017 10:14:40 GMT
Except that using the figures from Boundary Assistant is a case of garbage in, garbage out. Cambridge as of today has an electorate 10,000 higher than at the freeze date and there have been significant changes in the electorates of all the other seats bar Peterborough. Well, you've been teasing us for a while saying you'll post latest local authority figures but haven't. Without those we are stuck with Boundary assistant and December 2016 ONS electorate figures and unfortunately that means we won't be able to produce anything more timely. This is a fair complaint. As I've got a weekend to catch up on things, I've finally got round to uploading the spreadsheet as a Google doc. Let me know if it doesn't work properly. Also, I have checked Cambridgeshire more closely and it turns out it is possible to move St Neots instead of St Ives, though it's a little less neat. So I apologise for being dismissive about that. I will set that out in more detail in my next post.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Sept 9, 2017 11:36:38 GMT
Here's my data for Cambridgeshire. Caveat emptor, but the error on any given seat shouldn't be more than 100 voters unless I've made a major screw-up somewhere. | GE electorate | Freeze date electorate | Change | Quota |
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Cambridge | 78011 | 67266 | +10745 | 1.08 | South Cambs | 85202 | 81368 | +3834 | 1.18 | SE Cambs | 86304 | 82557 | +3747 | 1.20 | NE Cambs | 84444 | 81779 | +2665 | 1.17 | Peterborough | 70723 | 70623 | +100 | 0.98 | NW Cambs | 93010 | 89991 | +3019 | 1.29 | Huntingdon | 84350 | 81303 | +3047 | 1.17 |
As you can see, Cambridge saw a huge rise in electorate due to students getting back on (though it still had a larger electorate at the 2015 electorate than it does today, so it's by no means a full register). There also seems to be a pattern of more new registrations in the south than the north of the county, which would be even clearer if it weren't for a fair amount of housebuilding currently happening in NW Cambs. Obviously we don't know where precisely those new electors have been registering. It'll be happening more in some places than others (e. g. in Cambridge it'll be concentrated in the student/private-rental parts of the city, where the drop between 2015 and the freeze date was sharpest, and also on the Clay Farm estate in Trumpington which is starting to be built out.) But generally I've assumed a fairly even distribution of new electors across a seat unless I've specified otherwise. Let's start with Peterborough, which is the only seat within quota. Re-alignment to new ward boundaries also causes it to lose the small parish of Peakirk, but otherwise you may as well follow minimum change principles. The other borough constituency, Cambridge, is now a little too large. As of today, you could remove Trumpington and return to the pre-2010 boundaries, though if the freeze date is again at the start of the university year, you might have to remove a smaller ward, probably Cherry Hinton. Next it makes sense to deal with NE Cambs, due to its isolated position relative to the rest of the county. It's got about 14,000 electors too many, which by a handy coincidence is approximately how many East Cambridgesshire electors it has. So you drop those four wards and make it co-extensive with Fenland district. If these numbers hold true, I can't see the BCE considering any other option. Those four wards then go into SE Cambs, which accordingly needs to shed somewhere in the region of 30,000 electors from South Cambridgeshire district (it currently has a little under 40,000). They've got new wards from this year and I can't be certain about their electorates, but I would guess it'll be any two of the wards along the border with East Cambridgeshire (or possibly just one three-member ward.) That leaves South Cambridgeshire district, plus around 15000 electors from Cambridge minus about 10,000 going into SE Cambs. Which is a little over 120,000 electors. So you have to hive around 50,000 electors off and put them in with bits of Huntingdonshire. Very approximately, that would put the northern boundary of the South Cambridgeshire constituency somewhere around the A428. Lets now turn back to NW Cambridgeshire, which needs to lose 20,000 electors. Again, there are new wards coming in next years in Huntingdonshire, and I suspect it'll need either three or four of them from the north of the district. So Huntingdon has to move north to absorb that and you have to move either St Neots or St Ives to accommodate that. On the one hand St Ives has better links with the north-west of South Cambs than St Neots does, because the A14 is not as bad a road as the A428 is. On the other hand, the new St Neots-area wards have cleaner lines, whereas the St Ives-area wards tend to divide contiguous villages from each other and one of them combines areas on both sides of the Ouse without a bridge between them. So it's a judgement call as to whether you think it's more important to have a constituency that has a fairly cohesive identity, or whether you prefer a less cohesive constituency but with cleaner boundaries. So on a map (you'll just have to mentally adjust for new ward boundaries yourselves) I'd expect something looking like this: or like this:
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iain
Lib Dem
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Post by iain on Sept 9, 2017 13:01:07 GMT
Well that makes me think that the electoral calculus electorates may well be right.
Seat - EAL estimate - EC number - Difference Cambridge - 78,011 - 78,003 - 8 South Cambs - 85,202 - 85,258 - 56 SE Cambs - 86,304 - 86,120 - 184 NE Cambs - 84,444 - 84,408 - 36 Peterborough - 70,723 - 71,522 - 799 NW Cambs - 93,010 - 93,222 - 212 Huntingdon - 84,350 - 84,317 - 33
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Post by thirdchill on Sept 9, 2017 16:19:48 GMT
Good. The important thing is to get rid of the bonkers and damaging 5% limit (or at least, to make drastic changes to the way the Boundary Commission has interpreted it). Yep that was always going to cause problems. 650 seats, 10% variance, boundary reviews to occur every 10 years. Not sure what is wrong with that. They need to occur every 10 years though, as the electorate numbers in some seats are growing fast. Some of the london seats are close to or over 90000.
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Post by thirdchill on Sept 9, 2017 16:24:13 GMT
Regardless, at the very least the horrible (personally and on merit) proposals for places like the North East will be scrapped 😁😁 That is the best bit hopefully with 650 seats and a 10% variance, they may come up with something less insane. Though if they are still on the mind-altering substances that they were when these proposals for the north east were introduced, I wouldn't hold my breath. I await to see whether they split Barnard Castle again, or carve Middlesborough up into pieces. Or keep with their 'Berwick and Ashington' idea.
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iain
Lib Dem
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Post by iain on Sept 9, 2017 16:42:37 GMT
With the electoral calculus ward figures (which appear to be basically correct) West Yorks (outside Leeds) seems fairly okay even with a 5% variance:
Hemsworth - swaps Normanton for Wakefield South Pontefract & Castleford - loses Normanton Wakefield - swaps Osset x2 & Wakefield Rural for Outwood x2 & Wakefield South
Colne Valley - loses CM&N Huddersfield - swaps CM&N for Almondbury Batley & Dewsbury - Batley x2, Dewsbury x3 Osset (?) - Osset x2, Wakefield Rural, Kirkburton, Denny Dale, Almondbury Spenborough - other 5 Kirklees wards & Hipperholme
Calder Valley - loses Hipperholme Halifax - unchanged
Keighley - unchanged Shipley - swaps Windhill & Wrose for Thornton & Allerton Bradford West - swaps Thornton & Allerton for Great Horton Bradford South - swaps Great Horton for Little Horton Bradford East - swaps Little Horton for Windhill & Wrose
Bradford would only need the ward notionals / EAL's quota calculation to be out by a little bit to have no change.
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Post by finsobruce on Sept 9, 2017 17:00:54 GMT
I've had a quick look at those numbers, extrapolated some estimates, and thought about the implications for a 32-constituency Wales: Rest of GlamorganThis is going to be a pain. The principal areas are all awkward sizes: - Bridgend: 106,613 (est.) [1.48]
- Cardiff: 247,107 (est.) [3.42]
- Merthyr Tydfil: 43,775 (est.) [0.61]
- Rhondda Cynon Taf: 174,954 (est.) [2.42]
- Vale of Glamorgan: 96,714 (est.) [1.34]
Merthyr Tydfil and Rhondda Cynon Taf add up to 3.03 (not that that's going to be very pretty), but the rest then becomes a very difficult 6.24. Pontypridd and Barry towns are in the most awkward places possible as well.
"I, being the Returning officer for the Rest of Glamorgan".
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