Dec 2019 electorates

[evergreenadam]

Dec 27, 2019 12:12:35 GMT John Chanin said:

Largest electorate changes from 2010 to 2019. 

Constituency	Electorate 2010	Electorate 2019	Change
Leeds Central	64,698	90,971	+26,273
Sheffield Central	69,519	89,849	+20,330
Hackney N & Stoke Newington	73,874	92,451	+18,577
Poplar & Limehouse	74,956	91,760	+16,804
Hackney S & Shoreditch	72,816	89,380	+16,564
Bristol West	82,728	99,253	+16,525
Bermondsey & Southwark	77,623	93,313	+15,690
Greenwich & Woolwich	65,489	79,997	+14,508
Vauxhall	74,811	88,647	+13,836
Devon East	73,109	86,841	+13,732
Deptford	67,058	80,617	+13,559
West Ham	85,313	97,942	+12,629
Bedfordshire North East	78,060	90,679	+12,619
Edinburgh North & Leith	69,204	81,336	+12,132
Nottingham South	67,441	79,485	+12,044
Ealing Central & Acton	63,489	75,510	+12,021
Dulwich & West Norwood	72,817	84,663	+11,846
Bedfordshire Mid	76,023	87,795	+11,772
Saffron Walden	76,035	87,017	+10,982
Slough	77,068	87,632	+10,564

There are 7 other seats with increases over 10,000.  These are almost all inner city seats. Some of it is population increase, but I suspect much of it is new registrations, by mainly young people, on political grounds, who didn't bother to register and vote before. Bedfordshire is a bit strange - I don't think of Ampthill, Biggleswade and Sandy as being growth hotspots, although the constituencies contain some outer suburbs of Bedford, Luton, and Milton Keynes. 

There has been a lot of urban regeneration in these inner city seats, huge new blocks of flats for market sale or purpose built private student accommodation. Added to which rising rents and house prices and the switch in tenure of properties from owner occupied to private rental have made house sharing more common which has resulted in properties being lived in more intensively. The lack of new build housing has trapped an ever growing number of adults in inner city rental properties or sharing with their parents.

[evergreenadam]

Dec 27, 2019 12:34:11 GMT John Chanin said:

Largest electorate decreases from 2010.  

Constituency	Electorate 2010	Electorate 2019	Change
Oxford West & Abingdon	86,458	76,953	-9505
Hull West & Hessle	69,017	60,409	-8608
Dorset Mid & North Poole	72,647	65,426	-7221
Stoke Central*	60,995	55,424	-5571
Blackpool South	63,025	57,688	-5337
Northampton North	64,230	59,265	-4965
Northampton South	66,923	62,172	-4751
Erith & Thamesmead	69,918	65,399	-4519
Middlesbrough	65,148	60,759	-4389
Swansea West	61,334	57,078	-4256
Oxford East	81,886	77,947	-3939
Doncaster Central	75,207	71,389	-3818
Stoke North*	72,052	68,292	-3760
Wythenshawe & Sale East	79,923	76,313	-3610
Stoke South*	68,031	64,499	-3532
Redditch	68,550	65,391	-3159
Darlington	69,352	66,395	-2957
Mansfield	80,069	77,131	-2938
Ipswich	78,371	75,525	-2846
Ceredigion	59,043	56,250	-2793

* Stoke figures are doubtful, but this does look right for one of our most depressed cities. 

This consists partly of the vagaries of electoral registration - Oxford and Northampton obviously - but mostly I think of genuine population decreases. There are another 42 seats with decreases of more than 1000, and 104 in total with a decrease (including Dumfries & Galloway with a decrease of 1)

The Tories have generally done well in these seats since 2010, any coincidence?

[J.G.Harston]

Dec 27, 2019 11:27:58 GMT John Chanin said:

Here are the largest increases in published electorate since 2017.  You can assume that most of these are due to the vagaries of electoral registration departments rather than real population movements. A lot of them are student seats - I wonder if departing students who registered in 2017 have not been removed from the register?  

Sheffield Central

12,289

Sheffield ERO got a new computer system in 2002-ish and since then have been very efficient at removing non-existant electors, so I'd expect the Sheffield Central figure to be correct. Sheffield Central Ward was touching 25,000 compared to 14,000 average when the ward review was triggered.

When we got the new system thousands of ghosts were removed, resulting in the city electorate dropping from 420,000 to 380,000 overnight. There's an agreement that the city coroner's office notify ERO of deaths, so dead people get taken off promptly.

[John Chanin]

Dec 27, 2019 13:07:03 GMT evergreenadam said:

Dec 27, 2019 11:27:58 GMT John Chanin said:

Here are the largest increases in published electorate since 2017.  You can assume that most of these are due to the vagaries of electoral registration departments rather than real population movements. A lot of them are student seats - I wonder if departing students who registered in 2017 have not been removed from the register?  

Or that students are now better enrolled following sharp falls in registration in student heavy constituencies immediately after the introduction of Individual Voter Registration?

This is a good point I missed, but see the table of changes since 2010 which includes much the same seats. Yes there have been population increases in inner city and university seats over the last decade, but not I think enough to explain the large changes in electorate we see.

[John Chanin]

Just to complete this analysis, here are the changes from the operative date for the creation of the present constituencies (2000 or 2001, slightly different in Wales and Scotland), excluding northern Ireland.  It's taken me a while to do this, as I didn't have a spreadsheet with the figures used by the Boundary Commissions and had to create one.  I've done the top and bottom 50 for exemplification.

Constituency	Electorate	Change	Constituency	Electorate	Change
Poplar & Limehouse	91,760	+32,360	Wantage	90,875	+16,101
Hackney S & Shoreditch	89,380	+32,176	Folkestone & Hythe	88,273	+15,761
Hackney N & St Newington	92,451	+29,266	Cambridgeshire South	87,288	+15,691
Bermondsey & Southwark	93,313	+27,107	Streatham	84,788	+15,433
Bristol West	99,253	+24,991	East Ham	88,316	+15,416
Manchester Central	94,247	+24,647	Swindon North	82,441	+15,335
Sheffield Central	89,849	+24,588	Aylesbury	86,665	+14,642
Vauxhall	88,647	+22,888	Sittingbourne & Sheppey	83,917	+14,568
Northamptonshire South	90,840	+22,067	Horsham	86,730	+14,453
Bedfordshire North East	90,679	+21,779	Wokingham	83,953	+14,202
Bethnal Green & Bow	88,169	+21,746	Islington North	75,162	+14,108
Sleaford & North Hykeham	94,761	+21,703	Wiltshire South West	77,970	+14,105
Camberwell & Peckham	89,042	+21,278	Corby	86,151	+14,098
Cambridgeshire NW	94,909	+21,261	Slough	87,632	+14,005
Milton Keynes South	96,343	+20,661	Norfolk Mid	81,975	+13,647
West Ham	97,942	+19,958	Buckingham	83,146	+13,586
Greenwich & Woolwich	79,997	+19,524	Tiverton & Honiton	82,953	+13,271
Dulwich & West Norwood	84,663	+17,807	Warwick & Leamington	76,373	+13,137
Devon East	86,841	+17,773	Brent Central	84,204	+13,131
Bedfordshire Mid	87,795	+17,684	Rochester & Strood	82,056	+13,024
Derbyshire South	79,365	+17,235	Bury St Edmunds	89,644	+13,004
Ashford	89,550	+17,049	Basingstoke	82.926	+12,939
Saffron Walden	87,017	+16,615	Deptford	80,617	+12,935
Norfolk South	86,214	+16,523	Cambridgeshire SE	86,769	+12,828
Milton Keynes North	91,535	+16,223	Dartford	82,209	+12,738

[John Chanin]

And now the 50 biggest reductions.  Lots of Scottish seats here.  

Constituency	Electorate	Change	Constituency	Electorate	Change
Glasgow North East	61,075	-9824	Glenrothes	65,762	-3737
Liverpool Walton	62,628	-9554	Glasgow North West	63,402	-3685
Middlesbrough	60,759	-8879	Paisley & Renfrewshire Sth	64,385	-3653
Liverpool Wavertree	63,458	-8798	Rotherham	61,688	-3617
Stoke Central	55,424	-7906	Aberdeen South	65,719	-3613
Aberdeen North	62,489	-7133	Glasgow South	70,891	-3591
Newcastle Central	57,845	-6958	Bolton North East	67,564	-3460
Glasgow North	57,130	-6599	Dundee West	64,431	-3320
Blackpool South	57,688	-6314	Grimsby	61,409	-3185
Dunbartonshire West	66,517	-5193	Stoke South	64,499	-3130
Edinburgh East	69,424	-5081	Argyll & Bute	66,525	-3046
Gateshead	64,449	-4954	Doncaster Central	71,389	-2999
Northampton North	59,265	-4947	South Shields	62,793	-2980
Liverpool West Derby	65,640	-4943	Burnley	64,343	-2913
Hull East	65,745	-4893	Southgate	65,055	-2888
Inverclyde	60,622	-4863	Sheffield Heeley	66,940	-2849
Dwyfor Meirionnydd	44,362	-4461	Glasgow East	67,381	-2786
Sheffield Brightside etc	69,333	-4286	Wolverhampton SW	60,895	-2746
Newcastle East	63,796	-4272	Edinburgh South	66,188	-2696
Bolton South East	69,163	-4185	Birmingham Edgbaston	68,828	-2695
Washington & Sunderland W	66,273	-3986	Birkenhead	63,762	-2690
Hull West & Hessle	60,409	-3960	Houghton & Sunderland S	68,828	-2519
Fife North East	60,905	-3908	West Bromwich East	62,111	-2427
Preston	59,672	-3886	Blaenau Gwent	50,736	-2384
Sunderland Central	72,672	-3785	Edinburgh South West	73,501	-2286

[🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️]

Given the history of Tower Hamlets in electoral fraud, I do wonder how many of the 32,360 electors in Poplar and Limehouse actually (a) exist and (b) are entitled to vote.

[lancastrian]

Interesting that so many places have shrinking electorates. The last census found very few local authorities with declining populations, with the biggest decrease only 4%, in Barrow which doesn't appear on the above list at all. The population was increasing in Stoke, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Aberdeen and plenty of others on the list.

[John Chanin]

Dec 27, 2019 17:48:19 GMT 🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️ said:

Given the history of Tower Hamlets in electoral fraud, I do wonder how many of the 32,360 electors in Poplar and Limehouse actually (a) exist and (b) are entitled to vote.

The 2011 census picked up the big increase in population in east London, much higher than the published mid year estimates.  This is partly a young population with a high birth rate, but also substantial immigration, which in Tower Hamlets is from the commonwealth, and therefore people are eligible to vote. There is serious overcrowding in east London, where there is a very high percentage of renting, and nowhere for people to go.

Having said which I have no confidence in the competence of Tower Hamlets council, but it is more likely to be failure to remove people from the register than fraud.  After all there isn’t much point in fraud at General Elections in Tower Hamlets.  There may have been some fraudulent entries on the register in 2018 when there were contested local elections.  However this would only be a small percentage of the increase in electorate.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

As you now need an NI number or equivalent to register to vote, registration frauds are extremely difficult to pull off, and considerably easier to detect. It's frankly very easy to throw around accusations of widespread electoral fraud but also a bit pathetic.

[🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️]

Dec 27, 2019 19:12:48 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

As you now need an NI number or equivalent to register to vote, registration frauds are extremely difficult to pull off, and considerably easier to detect. It's frankly very easy to throw around accusations of widespread electoral fraud but also a bit pathetic.

Ah yes, magic NI numbers, where the problem has been known about since when Labour were last in government: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1550036/Fraud-fear-as-millions-of-NI-numbers-are-lost.html

[Davıd Boothroyd]

You didn't read the piece did you?

The new voters' names are cross-referenced against the NI numbers. If (in some way no-one has ever detected) a fraudster was able to conjure up a new NI number on demand, it would be easily and obviously suspicious to find it appear at the same time as an electoral registration. If they tried to use pre-existing NI numbers they would be rumbled immediately if any of them turned out to belong to someone who returned to the UK and sought to register.

[evergreenadam]

Dec 27, 2019 17:02:03 GMT John Chanin said:

Just to complete this analysis, here are the changes from the operative date for the creation of the present constituencies (2000 or 2001, slightly different in Wales and Scotland), excluding northern Ireland.  It's taken me a while to do this, as I didn't have a spreadsheet with the figures used by the Boundary Commissions and had to create one.  I've done the top and bottom 50 for exemplification.

Constituency	Electorate	Electorate Change	Constituency	Electorate	Electorate Change
Poplar & Limehouse	91,760	+32,360	Wantage	90,875	+16,101
Hackney S & Shoreditch	89,380	+32,176	Folkestone & Hythe	88,273	+15,761
Hackney N & St Newington	92,451	+29,266	Cambridgeshire South	87,288	+15,691
Bermondsey & Southwark	93,313	+27,107	Streatham	84,788	+15,433
Bristol West	99,253	+24,991	East Ham	88,316	+15,416
Manchester Central	94,247	+24,647	Swindon North	82,441	+15,335
Sheffield Central	89,849	+24,588	Aylesbury	86,665	+14,642
Vauxhall	88,647	+22,888	Sittingbourne & Sheppey	83,917	+14,568
Northamptonshire South	90,840	+22,067	Horsham	86,730	+14,453
Bedfordshire North East	90,679	+21,779	Wokingham	83,953	+14,202
Bethnal Green & Bow	88,169	+21,746	Islington North	75,162	+14,108
Sleaford & North Hykeham	94,761	+21,703	Wiltshire South West	77,970	+14,105
Camberwell & Peckham	89,042	+21,278	Corby	86,151	+14,098
Cambridgeshire NW	94,909	+21,261	Slough	87,632	+14,005
Milton Keynes South	96,343	+20,661	Norfolk Mid	81,975	+13,647
West Ham	97,942	+19,958	Buckingham	83,146	+13,586
Greenwich & Woolwich	79,997	+19,524	Tiverton & Honiton	82,953	+13,271
Dulwich & West Norwood	84,663	+17,807	Warwick & Leamington	76,373	+13,137
Devon East	86,841	+17,773	Brent Central	84,204	+13,131
Bedfordshire Mid	87,795	+17,684	Rochester & Strood	82,056	+13,024
Derbyshire South	79,365	+17,235	Bury St Edmunds	89,644	+13,004
Ashford	89,550	+17,049	Basingstoke	82.926	+12,939
Saffron Walden	87,017	+16,615	Deptford	80,617	+12,935
Norfolk South	86,214	+16,523	Cambridgeshire SE	86,769	+12,828
Milton Keynes North	91,535	+16,223	Dartford	82,209	+12,738

Of those Folkestone & Hythe seems the most surprising. Has there really been that much new house building there?

[Davıd Boothroyd]

I suspect that's a combination of Channel tunnel related development and ordinary growth. There are several other Kent constituencies on the list.

[carlton43]

Dec 28, 2019 1:14:16 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

I suspect that's a combination of Channel tunnel related development and ordinary growth. There are several other Kent constituencies on the list.

The growth there and in Ashford is partially French driven for commerce set up and tax avoidance reasons.  It is much quicker and easier and far cheaper to found a company in GB than in France, and cheaper to run it and maintain it here.  Imagine Brexit will have a marked effect on the tendency?

[yellowperil]

Dec 28, 2019 1:21:57 GMT carlton43 said:

Dec 28, 2019 1:14:16 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

I suspect that's a combination of Channel tunnel related development and ordinary growth. There are several other Kent constituencies on the list.

The growth there and in Ashford is partially French driven for commerce set up and tax avoidance reasons.  It is much quicker and easier and far cheaper to found a company in GB than in France, and cheaper to run it and maintain it here.  Imagine Brexit will have a marked effect on the tendency?

That's certainly a reason for added commercial activity but the population increase In Ashford and F&W is more related to commuting to London, and HS1 is partly responsible.

[hullenedge]

The Gini (inequality) index for the English 2019 electorates is 5.7, which historically is v.good:-

1970 - 13.8, 1974 - 10.7, 1979 - 12.4, 1983 - 5.7, 1987 - 6.7, 1992 - 7.9, 1997 - 4.7, 2001 - 5.2, 2005 - 5.9, 2010 - 4.7, 2015 - 5.1 and 2017 - 5.3.

[John Chanin]

Dec 28, 2019 19:11:44 GMT hullenedge said:

The Gini (inequality) index for the English 2019 electorates is 5.7, which historically is v.good:-

1970 - 13.8, 1974 - 10.7, 1979 - 12.4, 1983 - 5.7, 1987 - 6.7, 1992 - 7.9, 1997 - 4.7, 2001 - 5.2, 2005 - 5.9, 2010 - 4.7, 2015 - 5.1 and 2017 - 5.3.

Yes, the Boundary Commissions have increasingly emphasised the equality of seats, and have been more prepared to cross administrative boundaries to do so.  Compare 1974, 1983, 1997, and 2010 which were the first elections on revised boundaries.  Also, despite the changes I posted above, population movements this century have slowed substantially from the second half of the 20th century.  The huge movement out of the inner cities to the suburbs and new towns, and the repopulation of rural areas by well off incomers, are completed.  Obviously there are still some growth points, like Milton Keynes, and the revived centres of major cities, and some places where energy, economy, and people are wasting away, but they are much fewer.

I think this explains why people are quite relaxed about the present boundaries, and there is no urgency to change them.  Your figures show that seat inequality is still no worse than in 1983, directly after the biggest upheaval in the last 70 years (and probably much longer).  Really it’s only the over-representation of Wales that is now a serious problem.

[greenhert]

Nevertheless most of the press were talking about how senior Conservative ministers wanted Boris Johnson to press on with those boundary changes, even though they are based on considerably out of date electoral figures, and not enough Conservative MPs who will lose their seats as a result of said changes will rebel against them.

[edgbaston]

Dec 28, 2019 20:00:34 GMT greenhert said:

Nevertheless most of the press were talking about how senior Conservative ministers wanted Boris Johnson to press on with those boundary changes, even though they are based on considerably out of date electoral figures, and not enough Conservative MPs who will lose their seats as a result of said changes will rebel against them.

If they all vote in self interest then the Tory MPs for 

1. Anglesey 
2. Aberconwy
3. Blyth Valley
4. Burnley
5. Bury South

6. Bolton North East

7. Camarthen West
8. Cheadle
9. Chelsea
10. Cities of London & Westminster
11. Clwyd South
12. Dudley North
13. Finchley
14. Gedling
15. Haltemprice
16. Heywood
17. Kenilworth
18. Middlesbrough South
19. Milton Keynes South
20. Moray
21. Morecambe
22. North Cornwall

23. North Dorset
24. North Herefordshire
25. North West Durham
26. Pendle
27. Penistone

28. Pudsey

29. Rushcliffe
30. Sedgefield
31. Shipley
32. Southampton Itchin
33. Stockton South
34. Stone

35. Sutton
36. Tatton
37. Tunbridge Wells
38. Uxbridge
39. Vale of Clwyd
40. West Brom East

41. West Brom West
42. Wimbledon
43. Workington

should rebel and vote against.

Of course this isn't gong to happen as you say... and *even if they all did* there are still 322 Tory MPs who will benefit or be only minorly affected by the changes; enough to carry the house.

But it will be interesting to draw up a 'Turkey list' after the vote, if it happens, and see where their careers go. There are of course newly created safe seats many may bounce into.