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Post by yellowperil on May 1, 2018 15:47:59 GMT
re Kent: I quite like this (on the understanding that is accompanied by the appropriate number of list seats). In terms of communities I think this makes a lot more sense than any recent configuration in Kent. Romney Marsh was of course always part of the Ashford constituency back in its earliest history and I personally am not opposed to Hythe splitting from Folkestone. The pretty enormous Kent Weald constituency (which is where I personally would finish up) still does look like the "bits left over" one, but is a lot more coherent than a number of versions we have had to endure in the recent past -the people in the M20/A20 corridor like Charing and Lenham would probably say they weren't Weald they're Downland, but its arguable. You seem to have created an eminently winnable Lib Dem target in Maidstone which would probably delight my Maidstone LD colleagues.It's probably right that Ashford constituency is kept a bit on the low side as it will catch up fast. I like the single Thanet seat, and the elongated north-south constituencies in West Kent (Sevenoaks, Tonbridge) are no odder than what has happened there in the past. Then I want 6 All-County list seats to go with these 12 constituencies! On the basis of a national electoral scene much as now that would probably give the Lib Dems 2 seats (Maidstone + 1 county list), Labour 3-4 seats ( Canterbury+ one possible other -perhaps Dover/Folk?,+2 list seats) and the Tories the rest 9/10 constituencies and 3 list seats. Of course a new system, together with changing events,might mean people voted quite differently. I wouldn't get too carried away about Maidstone - the Lib Dems have never matched their local election strength there when it comes to general elections. Maidstone was one of those seats where the Lib Dems held up relatively well in 2015 but they then collapsed in 2017 to 16% of the vote - and that's the good news for them. In Faversham & Mid Kent and Chatham & Aylesford which provide the rest of the seat they got a derisory vote, I know the LDs used to get a very good local election vote in the Aylesford/Larkfield/Ditton area but it never counted for much in generals and doesn't count for much in locals anymore either, so I'd stick to relying on the list seats. Also Labour wouldn't win Canterbury with Herne Bay included I understand what you are saying -and why- but I am nothing like as "pessimistic" as you about Lib Dems in Maidstone or Labour in Canterbury as you are, because the targeting would be so different with a different set of boundaries. I think the Lib Dems in Maidstone would be a very different proposition without having to worry about a large chunk of very blue Weald, and Herne Bay has never really been worked hard by anyone IMO |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 1, 2018 15:55:55 GMT
Labour could have worked their arses off in Herne Bay in 2017 and they would not have got within 200 votes of the Conservatives which would have been necessary for them in order to have won Canterbury on these boundaries (if you're thinking of furture elections, bare in mind that the Conservatives didn't do any work in Canterbury at all as they imagined it to be safe). There's an obvious limit to how much effect work can have because some voters will just not be open to voting for you (that's undoubtedly more true for Conservatives and Labour than for the Lib Dems but there is also a limit to what you can do - I get way more attention from the Lib Dems in terms of canvassing and leafleting than I do from the other parties but I'll let you into a secret - I'm not going to vote for them)
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 16:12:13 GMT
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 1, 2018 16:19:03 GMT
I hope I didn't provide inspiration for your Steyning creation  |
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 16:25:05 GMT
I hope I didn't provide inspiration for your Steyning creation How else to fit 2 seats within the council areas of Chicester and Arun? |
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 16:48:23 GMT
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 1, 2018 16:54:15 GMT
I hope I didn't provide inspiration for your Steyning creation How else to fit 2 seats within the council areas of Chicester and Arun? I don't understand why doing so should be any kind of priority |
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 17:40:16 GMT
How else to fit 2 seats within the council areas of Chicester and Arun? I don't understand why doing so should be any kind of priority The numbers worked well, but in the end the fact that this made for sheer awkwardness elsewhere hurt whatever benefits were derived from pairing them together. |
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 19:37:35 GMT
Once you have agreed that the system is AM list top up, why does the +/- have to be so tight? +/-10% is pretty generous. I have not ordained anything besides 435 seats, +/-10%, a certain number of seats per review area, and protected seats for the Isle of Wight and two separate island chains in Scotland. But there's some importance in a UK-wide quota. And there exists some merit in a uniform upper limit and lower limit, though this could be overridden if such a strong need existed. It is unfortunate that sections of Scotland might have* be such a mess with such rules; I am unsure how to avoid it though. Perhaps give it a bigger band? Say, +/-15%? While leaving the rules unchanged in all other respects? Maybe this could be twinned with provision for there to be allowed a set number of constituencies that could be permitted to fit an even looser threshold? *=looking at it, the math in the Highlands make its hard to work with...but I am unsure if it's unavoidable. |
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 19:52:07 GMT
103154 is the quota, so 20% makes for 82523-123785. I would also make provision for a looser, special 25% band in use in the Highlands council area.  This is to allow for this, which seems to be the ideal arrangement in the Highlands. And it might be justifiable thanks to how remote the region is - the population density in the Highlands rivals that of portions of Siberia. |
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 19:57:45 GMT
Ok, so now no need to protect the Islands. No, they are still protected. |
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 20:04:49 GMT
Certainly there must be a reason why the island constituencies have been protected in successive legislation passed by the Government, and (as far as I know) have never had a seat in common with the mainland. If it was a dozen island constituencies off the coast that were massively under quota, then we'd have a problem. But there's only 2 of them. |
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2018 20:14:21 GMT
To be fair, even if the system is changed, the distance between islands and mainland doesn't change.
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 20:21:09 GMT
Special pleading BS. If you advocate PR, then this is the moment to do away with the BS. Give me a reason to support your proposal. I don't actually personally support party list PR for Westminster elections. But that's not the point of this exercise, from my point of view at the very least - I understand that others who do support it should have a chance to toy around with this 435 hypothetical. The point of this is to see how constituencies would look like with a higher quota set at this level. It's a mapmaking, constituency-drawing exercise open to all. I do not ordain any specific electoral system that goes along with this - that's in the eye of the beholder, and if I forced myself to pick one to choose before opening this thread, I probably could never pick. I prefer AV to PR anyway, and don't think FPTP is all that bad - it's not a terrible electoral system. So if you think I'm someone who thinks the UK should go copy Denmark's electoral system, you are misinformed. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 1, 2018 21:07:22 GMT
Certainly there must be a reason why the island constituencies have been protected in successive legislation passed by the Government, and (as far as I know) have never had a seat in common with the mainland. If it was a dozen island constituencies off the coast that were massively under quota, then we'd have a problem. But there's only 2 of them. Not never no. The Western Isles has existed as a single constituency since 1918. Prior to that bits of it were included in their respective county seats (ie most of Lewis in Ross & Cromarty (and before that in Ross-shire) and Southern Lewis and the rest of the islands in Inverness-shire) |
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YL
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Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
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Post by YL on May 1, 2018 21:14:02 GMT
Not never no. The Western Isles has existed as a single constituency since 1918. Prior to that bits of it were included in their respective county seats (ie most of Lewis in Ross & Cromarty (and before that in Ross-shire) and Southern LewisHarris and the rest of the islands in Inverness-shire) FTFY. |
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2018 21:30:19 GMT
Special pleading BS. If you advocate PR, then this is the moment to do away with the BS. Give me a reason to support your proposal. I'd be supportive of retaining the Scottish island constituencies, but where the voters in them can't vote for list seats. Although if that were to be the case, it would have to be clear that the constituents prefer such an arrangement (to being part of a larger, ordinary constituency). |
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2018 21:34:45 GMT
I would also make provision for a looser, special 25% band in use in the Highlands council area. It may be worth using a Norwegian style apportionment system. 1 voter (or possibly resident, I'm not sure) = 1 point, 1 sq. km = 1.8 points. In Norway, the number of points decides how many seats are apportioned to each county. In this scenario, the size of constituencies could be decided by a set number of points +/- 10% or so, allowing super rural constituencies to not be overwhelmingly large, whilst not introducing special case rules or arbitrary cut-off points. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 1, 2018 21:56:40 GMT
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Post by tiberius on May 1, 2018 22:09:51 GMT
I would also make provision for a looser, special 25% band in use in the Highlands council area. It may be worth using a Norwegian style apportionment system. 1 voter (or possibly resident, I'm not sure) = 1 point, 1 sq. km = 1.8 points. In Norway, the number of points decides how many seats are apportioned to each county. In this scenario, the size of constituencies could be decided by a set number of points +/- 10% or so, allowing super rural constituencies to not be overwhelmingly large, whilst not introducing special case rules or arbitrary cut-off points. I'm wary of making the rules too complicated... In the case of the Highlands, the wards within that Caithness seat have 80,598 electors, and the Inverness seat has 91,471. The lower band is 82,523. You need to add one of the three bordering wards to get it over, and adding any one of them makes the Inverness seat unworkable (exactly the kind of seat that the looser +/- 20% band is supposed to get rid of). Hence the special +/- 25% band. Elsewhere, there's more wiggle room, so the usual rules can apply, which allows the Fife county line to be be preserved, among other things that help make things more workable in Alba. |
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Here's an alternative version 
