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Post by greenhert on May 30, 2020 12:11:23 GMT
Surely the biggest loser in Cumbria this time is Tim Farron? Given the inevitability of a cross-country seat under a 650-quota. This has crossed my mind. If there has to be a cross-county seat, TIm will either have to fight Morecambe + X, or wherever the Lakes/northern Westmorland part goes, and that would dilute the LD vote on a fingerclick. Actually, Tim Farron would most likely end up contesting a resurrected Westmorland seat which expands into the southern reaches of Penrith & The Border (the southern reaches which were part of Westmorland, including the area around Appleby). Grange-over-Sands would only form a small part of what would most likely be a resurrected Morecambe & Lonsdale seat. Ulverston, whilst being in the South Lakeland district, is not in the Westmorland & Lonsdale constituency anyway, but rather in Barrow & Furness. |
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Post by greenhert on May 30, 2020 12:17:51 GMT
Forgive my ignorance, but are we certain the old regions will be used for this new review? Granted, there doesn't seem to be an easy Northumberland/Cumbria seat (you either end up with Hexham and Penrith or a weird split of Carlisle), but is this explicitly barred? This will not be permitted in practice by the BCE because Northumberland is in the North East and Cumbria is in the North West. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on May 30, 2020 12:51:31 GMT
The PBCE doesn't have a legal requirement to respect regional boundaries. The law only says they "may" take them into account.
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Post by John Chanin on May 30, 2020 13:51:27 GMT
The PBCE doesn't have a legal requirement to respect regional boundaries. The law only says they "may" take them into account. But the BCE is neither professional nor competent, and has no permanent staff, and few temporary ones. They therefore always go for simple solutions that they have used in the past. Almost certainly they will therefore start from regional allocations, despite the regions having no statutory basis, and using them being completely unnecessary. |
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,918
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Post by YL on May 30, 2020 14:16:43 GMT
This has crossed my mind. If there has to be a cross-county seat, TIm will either have to fight Morecambe + X, or wherever the Lakes/northern Westmorland part goes, and that would dilute the LD vote on a fingerclick.
One option based on the 2019 electorates & quota might look something like this - boundaries shown are best-fit with new ward boundaries.
Very similar to what I had... (I didn't have the Carlisle doughnut, though.) The Penrith & Westmorland (or whatever you want to call it) seat would presumably be notionally fairly comfortably Tory, but would Farron have a chance? IIRC the Lib Dems have shown some strength in the Eden areas in the past. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2020 14:45:35 GMT
"Penrith and The Lakes" would at least only have one word to amend in official documents  ;) |
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Post by greenhert on May 30, 2020 14:47:10 GMT
Issues with new seats in Somerset/North Somerset/Bath & North East Somerset: would it be appropriate to create a "Frome, Wells, and Midsomer Norton" seat? There is not really anywhere else where the boundary can be crossed and non-unitarised Somerset is too large for five seats but not large enough for six under a 5% tolerance.
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Post by mattb on May 30, 2020 17:08:28 GMT
Issues with new seats in Somerset/North Somerset/Bath & North East Somerset: would it be appropriate to create a "Frome, Wells, and Midsomer Norton" seat? There is not really anywhere else where the boundary can be crossed and non-unitarised Somerset is too large for five seats but not large enough for six under a 5% tolerance. Of course it could all change again when we get the 2020 numbers; but looking at the 2019 figures, Somerset might even be good for 6 whole seats (5.79 quotas), but close to 5% limit. Same applies to Wilts (5.22 quotas or 7.30 quotas if you include Swindon). Suspect you want to pair these for 11 seats plus 2 in Swindon. N Somerset & BANES should be fine together for 4 seats. Cornwall (mercifully!) is perfect for 6 whole seats  |
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Post by mattb on May 30, 2020 17:26:39 GMT
Very similar to what I had... (I didn't have the Carlisle doughnut, though.) The Penrith & Westmorland (or whatever you want to call it) seat would presumably be notionally fairly comfortably Tory, but would Farron have a chance? IIRC the Lib Dems have shown some strength in the Eden areas in the past. Eden currently run by a LD/Ind majority. I hadn't thought to look but having just checked, the Tory wards are mostly in Penrith and the north of the district. The LD wards are spread everywhere except the north. For what it's worth. |
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Post by loderingo on May 30, 2020 17:27:03 GMT
Issues with new seats in Somerset/North Somerset/Bath & North East Somerset: would it be appropriate to create a "Frome, Wells, and Midsomer Norton" seat? There is not really anywhere else where the boundary can be crossed and non-unitarised Somerset is too large for five seats but not large enough for six under a 5% tolerance. Of course it could all change again when we get the 2020 numbers; but looking at the 2019 figures, Somerset might even be good for 6 whole seats (5.79 quotas), but close to 5% limit. Same applies to Wilts (5.22 quotas or 7.30 quotas if you include Swindon). Suspect you want to pair these for 11 seats plus 2 in Swindon. N Somerset & BANES should be fine together for 4 seats. Cornwall (mercifully!) is perfect for 6 whole seats The issue is what to do about Devon. You could give Devon a whole extra seat but then it might be a struggle to fit in the lower tolerance. Therefore, I would suggest grouping Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire for 2 extra seats (perhaps something along the lines of a Chard and Honiton pairing). Cornwall and Dorset can keep the same number of seats with minimal change. BANES and N Somerset can be paired as you suggest. That leaves a grouping of Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire and Bristol for one extra seat |
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Post by mattb on May 30, 2020 18:22:50 GMT
The issue is what to do about Devon. You could give Devon a whole extra seat but then it might be a struggle to fit in the lower tolerance. Therefore, I would suggest grouping Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire for 2 extra seats (perhaps something along the lines of a Chard and Honiton pairing). Cornwall and Dorset can keep the same number of seats with minimal change. BANES and N Somerset can be paired as you suggest. That leaves a grouping of Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire and Bristol for one extra seat My thought had been to pair Devon with Dorset and give BCP 4 whole seats. But I accept that's a lot of arguably-unnecessary disruption. Equally I am uncomfortable with forcing any county to have two cross-country seats unless really unavoidable. So maybe worth seeing how easy it is to squeeze a whole extra seat into Devon. If not, a Lyme Bay seat would not be a disaster in my view. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on May 30, 2020 19:36:15 GMT
Issues with new seats in Somerset/North Somerset/Bath & North East Somerset: would it be appropriate to create a "Frome, Wells, and Midsomer Norton" seat? There is not really anywhere else where the boundary can be crossed and non-unitarised Somerset is too large for five seats but not large enough for six under a 5% tolerance. How so? The existing Bath needs to take one ward from North East Somerset, which then needs to gain from something else. There's no need to start in Weston and reduce the oversized seats at that end in the Bath-ward direction. It's really not that bad an idea to take at least the Blagdon, Banwell, and Hutton wards southwards and maintain the existing pattern of constituencies as much as possible. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on May 30, 2020 19:49:53 GMT
For what it's worth, here's a quick and dirty go at Somerset:  Bath 66552 Yes North East Somerset 66452 Yes Wells and Frome 66457 Yes Somerton 68652 Yes Yeovil 66384 Yes North Somerset 66577 Yes Weston-super-Mare 67384 Yes Wedmore 66557 Yes Bridgwater and West Somerset 65655 Yes Taunton Deane 69081 Yes |
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Post by andrewp on May 30, 2020 20:08:55 GMT
For what it's worth, here's a quick and dirty go at Somerset: Bath 66552 Yes North East Somerset 66452 Yes Wells and Frome 66457 Yes Somerton 68652 Yes Yeovil 66384 Yes North Somerset 66577 Yes Weston-super-Mare 67384 Yes Wedmore 66557 Yes Bridgwater and West Somerset 65655 Yes Taunton Deane 69081 Yes I don’t think there would be any problem in putting Midsomer Norton and Radstock in a seat with Wells or Frome if needed. Creating a 6th seat in Somerset is tricky due to the positions of Taunton and Bridgwater. I usually end up with some sort of horrible Central Somerset seat. Your Somerton seat would be a pretty bad one. Your Wedmore seat would end up being called Sedgemoor i suspect if it ever came to be. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on May 30, 2020 20:19:45 GMT
Creating a 6th seat in Somerset is tricky due to the positions of Taunton and Bridgwater. I usually end up with some sort of horrible Central Somerset seat. Your Somerton seat would be a pretty bad one. Your Wedmore seat would end up being called Sedgemoor i suspect if it ever came to be. How prosaic. I quite enjoyed coming up with a constituency named after a plausibly ridiculously small place. Edit: And come to think of it, the present Somerton and Frome is pretty awful to start with... |
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Post by andrewp on May 30, 2020 20:29:16 GMT
Creating a 6th seat in Somerset is tricky due to the positions of Taunton and Bridgwater. I usually end up with some sort of horrible Central Somerset seat. Your Somerton seat would be a pretty bad one. Your Wedmore seat would end up being called Sedgemoor i suspect if it ever came to be. How prosaic. I quite enjoyed coming up with a constituency named after a plausibly ridiculously small place. Edit: And come to think of it, the present Somerton and Frome is pretty awful to start with... Yes it is. It’s difficult where to base the 6th seat on. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 30, 2020 20:37:08 GMT
I've always gone for a seat based on the (now defunct) West Somerset district which is just about manageable if you take in all the wards of Sedgemoor and Taonton Deane districts West of Bridgwater and Taunton respectively (I tend to call this seat Wellington but find that I have also created a Wellington seat in Shropshire. Bridgewater would then link with Burnham on sea and those other parts of Sedgemoor currently in the Wells seat and Taunton would need to pick up just a couple of wards from South Somerset
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 30, 2020 20:43:59 GMT
 Actually this might be a better configuration of the Wells and Frome constituencies  |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 30, 2020 21:00:34 GMT
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iain
Lib Dem
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Post by iain on May 30, 2020 22:16:51 GMT
This is quite reasonable - probably about the best that can be done with an awkward number of seats. |
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;)
