Boundaries Archive

[the_bullies]

Can I suggest everyone reads Wikipedia's definition of Gerrymandering, I have posted the link below:-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering
In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan or incumbent-protected districts. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander ( /ˈdʒɛriˌmændər/); however, that word can also refer to the process.
Gerrymandering may be used to achieve desired electoral results for a particular party (in this case the Tories!), or may be used to help or hinder a particular demographic, such as a political, racial, linguistic, religious or class group.

[/blockquote]

[timrollpickering]

Where are the geographic boundaries being manipulated? Undoing a malapportionment caused by defects in the rules (and there are defects, most notably the glacial pace of boundaries) is not drawing the lines to suit advantage.

The reason Labour squeal and squeal is because they don't have a legitimate answer to questions as to why my constituency is one of the largest in the country and why my vote should count for less that Ed Balls's.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Nov 3, 2012 16:14:10 GMT timrollpickering said:

Where are the geographic boundaries being manipulated? Undoing a malapportionment caused by defects in the rules (and there are defects, most notably the glacial pace of boundaries) is not drawing the lines to suit advantage.

The reason Labour squeal and squeal is because they don't have a legitimate answer to questions as to why my constituency is one of the largest in the country and why my vote should count for less that Ed Balls's.

Your constituency is one of the largest in the country and it's also solidly Labour, so why it is evidence to support a measure designed to address over-representation of Labour-voting areas is a mystery to me and I suspect everyone else.

[East Anglian Lefty]

The boundaries the Commission has proposed aren't a gerrymander. They are absolutely fucking retarded because the terms of reference are too strict, but that likely reflects incompetence on the part of the government rather than malign intent. The measures to reduce the number of seats to 600 and to allow county boundaries to be crossed, on the other hand, were definitely undertaken with partisan intent.

[the_bullies]

Which is the definition of 'Gerrymandering'. Boundary changes only work where all political parties are treated on an equal basis. Where one party changes the rules to suit themselves means that the system eventually falls down & trust is lost. The only way to put things back the way they were with trust amongst all parties is to scrap or repeal these unfair partisan changes(which a Labour government will do) & to give the commission the status of a statutory regulator with independent powers to set & maintain it's own remit & suggest any tweaks it see's as necessary. The changes to other countries in the UK have had a huge on the people who live in those areas & how they see the English. Because an a strictly majority English party (the Tories) are trying to change boundaries in countries that have fundamentally rejected their view. If we want to maintain a federal UK then we need to devolve boundaries in these countries to the devolved assemblies/parliaments where they can all decide their their own boundaries without outside interference within the criteria & on a cross-party basis as has always been done in the past until this review. ps I am a proud Unionist but also a socialist.

[greatkingrat]

How can you devolve control of boundaries? Clearly no country would ever vote to give itself fewer seats than it currently has, so are you saying the current seat distribution should remain unchanged for ever more?

[the_bullies]

Until there is general agreement from all parties in country in question. You see no small Celtic nation is ever going to agree to being bullied by a big English country that never takes account of their view. If you want a Uk to stay together you must allow the smaller partners to 'punch above their weight' & for their say to be heard amongst the English mass of mp's. This is why a Yes vote in Scotland would impact Wales & Northern Ireland as we would have to get assurances from England that their even bigger majority would not swamp the remaining two smaller nations. I beleve we need (as Carwyn Jones said) a commission to look at the relationship between all governing institutions that make up the uk. i.e. The Lords, The Commons & the Assemblies. We have an unwritten constitution I think we need an official one that underlines what a 'Federal Uk' would look like & the relationship between each country. All on an equal basis, it may mean more devolution to English regions even an English Parliament. As I say I'm a Unionist & want to stop the Nationalists not help them. What the Tories have forgotten is that Wales is a separate nation & we dont agree with the English proposals.

[cibwr]

Speaking as a Welsh nationalist, I understand the arguments for an over representation of Wales to somewhat compensate for the overwhelming domination of English MPs. However I also understand the arguments that constituencies should be roughly equal in size. I tend to think that the formula used in the latest review is far too rigid and is going to produce some constituencies that make a mockery of any form of representation of communities - they are entirely arbitrary and have little resonance with actual communities that people can identify with. Having said that addressing the constitutional issues might provide effective checks and balances that would help - giving the remaining nations weighted representation in a reformed upper house might be that mechanism - together with a more clear cut devolution settlement (moving to the reserved powers model).
Having said that you only have to remember Treweryn to see how powerless Welsh MPs actually are.

[Deleted]

Of course the current review isn't gerrymandering, and it reflects terribly on Labour posters on this forum who continue to winge along that line of argument. It's not gerrymandering to try and make constituencies the same size.

The system is biased in favour of the Labour Party now, and will be even after the necessary and correct changes are made.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Nov 3, 2012 19:56:00 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

It's not gerrymandering to try and make constituencies the same size.

Gerrymandering is an intent. It is gerrymandering to embark on a boundary review motivated by a desire to improve the representation of a particular party at the expense of others, and Conservatives have openly said that is the aim.

The gerrymandering can be seen particulary in the choice of overall size of the House, which directly fixes the electoral quota at a level which is least likely to help Labour. It can also be seen in section 11(2) of the Act. Then there are the constituencies exempted by the Act, which give the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats each an 'extra' seat in areas where geographical problems arise. The government is clearly not entirely in favour of equal sized constituencies if it will cause local problems for themselves.

The system is biased in favour of the Labour Party now, and will be even after the necessary and correct changes are made.

No, the system isn't by and large biased in favour of Labour. The only aspect which systematically favours Labour is the slight over-representation of Wales but that is worth no more than five or six seats.

The main factors leading to Labour winning more seats than the Conservatives for the same share of the vote are, first, that Labour seats have a lower turnout. Were the turnout in the safe Labour seats to match that in safe Conservative ones, the national vote would look significantly different, which demonstrates the problem with the comparison. The second factor is the effectiveness of local political campaigning. That is no concern of the electoral system. It is pure gerrymandering for the Conservatives to attempt to correct in law for the ineffectiveness of their local campaigning.

[Deleted]

Oh David, it's just like old times.

[The Bishop]

David is, on this, quite correct. Just because Labour distribute their votes more efficiently than their rivals does not mean there is a "bias" towards them........

(this has not always been so in the past, of course, nor is there any guarantee it will continue in the future)

[timrollpickering]

Nov 3, 2012 16:24:17 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Nov 3, 2012 16:14:10 GMT timrollpickering said:

The reason Labour squeal and squeal is because they don't have a legitimate answer to questions as to why my constituency is one of the largest in the country and why my vote should count for less that Ed Balls's.

Your constituency is one of the largest in the country and it's also solidly Labour, so why it is evidence to support a measure designed to address over-representation of Labour-voting areas is a mystery to me and I suspect everyone else.

The measure is designed to equalise seats and representation. There are areas where the current defects produce oversized seats that have Labour MPs. They deserve to be corrected as much as the rest rather than the whole thing descend into partisan point scoring.

So I repeat my question - why should West Ham be ridiculously oversized and be kept that way and get worse for a decade plus? Why should a West Ham vote count for less?

[tricky]

There is no connection between votes won nationally and seats won in our system anyway so anyone complaining about seat distribution and supporting FPTP at the same time is a whining hypocrite.

The current review is no more of a gerrymander than the previous one was.

[john07]

Nov 3, 2012 22:30:15 GMT timrollpickering said:

The measure is designed to equalise seats and representation. There are areas where the current defects produce oversized seats that have Labour MPs. They deserve to be corrected as much as the rest rather than the whole thing descend into partisan point scoring.

So I repeat my question - why should West Ham be ridiculously oversized and be kept that way and get worse for a decade plus? Why should a West Ham vote count for less?

The problem is that the excersise came over to me as going beyond attempting to eliminate malapportionment and edging towards gerrymandering.

Where did the idea of a 600 seat parliament come from? Why not stay with 650? Why not 400? Someone has obviously carried out a simulation and found that 600 produced the 'best' results.

FPTP does not produce an exact relationship between votes cast and seats won. Labour voters tend to be more strategically situated in marginal constituencies. The only legitimate way to correct that is to go for PR, not to manipulate the boundaries and size of Parliament.

I was amazed that the Lib Dems ever bought into the idea in the first place. They tend not to have sufficient concentration of core support to win many seats under FPTP. They consequently have to rely on personal votes to win many of their seats. The mayhem of new boundaries for every election with rigid limits would tear this asunder.

[tricky]

So in between the election and the Coalition Agreement there was time to run simulations was there? And it happened that these simulations came out at a round number?

If you really believe that to be true you must see lizard people everywhere.

[Tangent]

Nov 4, 2012 0:51:45 GMT tricky said:

So in between the election and the Coalition Agreement there was time to run simulations was there? And it happened that these simulations came out at a round number?

If you really believe that to be true you must see lizard people everywhere.

The number wasn't set in the Agreement, but in the Bill.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Nov 3, 2012 23:49:07 GMT tricky said:

There is no connection between votes won nationally and seats won in our system anyway so anyone complaining about seat distribution and supporting FPTP at the same time is a whining hypocrite.

The current review is no more of a gerrymander than the previous one was.

Not true. The current review mandates fewer seats. I doubt simulations were run, because frankly all the evidence is that no thought whatsoever went into the bill establishing the Sixth Review, but there was a widespread belief, not least amongst supporters of the legislation, that reducing the number of seats would harm Labour and aid the Conservatives.

So in that respect it is more of a gerrymander than the Fifth Review, where the terms of reference were not altered from previous reviews with the intention of deriving political gain.

It's not a gerrymander in the strict American sense of the term, but I don't think you have to go that far down the road to moral bankruptcy for the propriety of an action to be questioned.

[swindonlad]

Surely if one is to have single member FPTP elections a fundamental starting point is having constituencies of equal size, or as near as practical. Over history there have been times when this link has been broken, which is where we are now, and brought back more into line, thus all this legislation is doing is bringing this fundamental underpinning of electoral fairness under FPTP back into place.
I find those who object as it’s not fair are, either not understanding the basics of equality (which I don’t think) or, are more likely, seeing the current inherent inequity is favouring their party and are worried about the effects of this plan to reintroduce electoral equality.
As for those who think that FPTP is not the most equitable voting system, although I disagree with you, at least I can see there is a reasoned argument there.

[cibwr]

Nov 4, 2012 0:18:00 GMT john07 said:

Where did the idea of a 600 seat parliament come from? Why not stay with 650? Why not 400? Someone has obviously carried out a simulation and found that 600 produced the 'best' results.

Actually I agree with this point, Why reduce the size of the Commons? I understood it was a desire to reduce the cost of government - a sort of knee jerk response to those that say we have too many elected representatives (or politicians) and the cut would save money. I don't hold with that idea. It seems to be tokenism of the worst sort.

Now if, it has been suggested, that the number of MPs was chosen to give the greatest advantage to one party then that is gerrymandering. If they truly wanted to give equal weight to each vote then they would have gone for STV as the electoral system.