johng
Labour
Posts: 4,850 
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Post by johng on May 13, 2021 20:39:22 GMT
I think there'll be a lot of pressure from within Labour to increase the Senedd's size. Everyone knows it is too small to do it's job well. The fairly miserable compromise I see this landing on is 32 constituencies, plus 32 from eight regional lists. It allows everyone to claim they've won. It's technically an increase in size (by 4), but a small enough increase that it can be portrayed as the grown-ups voting down separatist waste, it essentially keeps Labour's favoured system whilst avoiding lists of a length that would let oddballs in, and it could be plausibly claimed to be making things more proportional, whilst actually intensifying the constituency effect by reducing the size of the regions. Would Labour and the Conservatives both vote for that system? I'd imagine the answer is "probably". The third party and the dead parrot are likely to push for something too extreme that a more straightforward bipartisan compromise between government and main opposition parties is much more in everyone's interests. Have you thought that through at all?
Four constituencies in each region which would also elect four regional members?
It wouldn't be good for devolution and would be terrible for Labour. It would make any single-party government, even minority, essentially impossible. It is also far more proportional than the current Senedd or the Scottish Parliament. Honestly, I don't know if you're joking or not.
We are much more likely to get even STV than that nonsense.
I have no idea what you mean by separatists too. Extending the size of the Senedd is a unionist cause to strengthen devolution and strengthen the union. We don't need four additional seat, we need at least twenty.
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Post by Penddu on May 14, 2021 1:31:45 GMT
I think there'll be a lot of pressure from within Labour to increase the Senedd's size. Everyone knows it is too small to do it's job well. The fairly miserable compromise I see this landing on is 32 constituencies, plus 32 from eight regional lists. It allows everyone to claim they've won. It's technically an increase in size (by 4), but a small enough increase that it can be portrayed as the grown-ups voting down separatist waste, it essentially keeps Labour's favoured system whilst avoiding lists of a length that would let oddballs in, and it could be plausibly claimed to be making things more proportional, whilst actually intensifying the constituency effect by reducing the size of the regions. Would Labour and the Conservatives both vote for that system? I'd imagine the answer is "probably". The third party and the dead parrot are likely to push for something too extreme that a more straightforward bipartisan compromise between government and main opposition parties is much more in everyone's interests. 4 extra seats is not worth the effort - but equalising list seats with regions will never be accepted - especially by Labour. |
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Post by Penddu on May 14, 2021 2:23:19 GMT
I am going to go with a 50/30 AMS system. Based on 5 electoral regions which follow local authority boundaries:
- SWE would lose Merthyr - and be renamed Gwent
- SWC would gain Merthyr and lose Vale of Glamorgan - renamed East Glamorgan
- SWW would gain VoG - renamed South & West Glamorgan
- MWW would lose Meirionydd - renamed Dyfed Powys
- NW would gain Meirionydd - renamed Gogledd
Adjust number of seats in each region as required to maintain approx same seat sizes (as already done in SWC & NW). Maybe keep a 5% seat size variation as a preferred target but with a 10% absolute limit.
But two big differences
- list seats to be assigned on vote share in constituencies and not by separate list vote (simplifies voting and counting process and eliminates tactical split voting)
- and party list order to be determined by order of votes cast and not by party preference (rewards constituency efforts by losing candidates from larger parties - and avoid 'coronations' of favoured candidates by minor parties)
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 14, 2021 6:29:09 GMT
That all sounds good apart from the ridiculous name for North Wales which nobody has heard of and no normal person can pronounce (like those stupid health board names in Wales). If 'North Wales' is too prosaic, then call it Clwyd and Gwynedd
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Harry Hayfield
Green
Cavalier Gentleman (as in 17th century Cavalier)
Posts: 2,922
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Post by Harry Hayfield on May 14, 2021 6:34:01 GMT
I have just found out something rather interesting. On the day of the count the Boundary Commission for England announced "Stay tuned for important news" and then on Tuesday of this week announced "Initial Recommendations to be announced on June 8th". Yesterday I noted that Monmouthshire council was the only council in Wales yet to have it's final recommendations published for the locals next year and so wrote to the Local Government Boundary Commission to ask when that review would be published and if it was, could they tell me so that it was not lost in the media noise about the Westminster boundary review
They have just replied to state that the Welsh element of the Westminster Boundary Review will not be announced until SEPTEMBER meaning that each part of the UK is announcing its initial review on four separate dates between June 8th and the end of September. Therefore working on the assumption of a twenty week period between initial recommendations and being laid before Westminster (no later than February 17th 2022) does that mean that the rumblings from Con MP's of a general election on May 4th 2023 can actually happen?
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johng
Labour
Posts: 4,850
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Post by johng on May 14, 2021 13:44:34 GMT
That all sounds good apart from the ridiculous name for North Wales which nobody has heard of and no normal person can pronounce (like those stupid health board names in Wales). If 'North Wales' is too prosaic, then call it Clwyd and Gwynedd What do you mean? Cwm Taf Morgannwg trips off the tongue. *They aren't actually that difficult to pronounce.
I do find it odd, though, he chose a Welsh name for North Wales, but not Glamorgan.
The new Welsh Government has a new role of Minister of the Constitution. I wonder what that role involves.
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Post by Penddu on May 14, 2021 13:55:17 GMT
That all sounds good apart from the ridiculous name for North Wales which nobody has heard of and no normal person can pronounce (like those stupid health board names in Wales). If 'North Wales' is too prosaic, then call it Clwyd and Gwynedd I dont have a strong opinion on the name - but Gogledd is easy to pronounce - try it - Gog-leth (th as in THem). No more difficult than Gwynedd. Gwynedd was the original kingdom which covered most of north Wales - extending east to include modern Denbighshire but not including modern Flintshire and Wrexham (which were in Powys). When the police forces were reorganised in the 1970s the original proposed name for the NW force was simply Gwynedd - and today it is 'affectionately' referred to as 'Gogplod'. Clwyd was an invention of the 1974 local government reorganisation and is the only one of the 1974 counties not named after one of the original kingdoms, and you wont find many people wanting to retain this name. |
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Post by Penddu on May 14, 2021 13:59:26 GMT
That all sounds good apart from the ridiculous name for North Wales which nobody has heard of and no normal person can pronounce (like those stupid health board names in Wales). If 'North Wales' is too prosaic, then call it Clwyd and Gwynedd What do you mean? Cwm Taf Morgannwg trips off the tongue. *They aren't actually that difficult to pronounce.
I do find it odd, though, he chose a Welsh name for North Wales, but not Glamorgan.
The new Welsh Government has a new role of Minister of the Constitution. I wonder what that role involves.
Glamorgan is just an anglicised form of Gwlad Morgan - but no problem with naming them Morgannwg instead. Just not South Wales West and South Wales Central. |
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Post by Penddu on May 14, 2021 14:26:59 GMT
The new Welsh Government has a new role of Minister of the Constitution. I wonder what that role involves.
I take that to mean that Welsh Gov are going to be pushing their 'Home Rule' agenda. Although it is not clear what 'Home Rule' means - or 'Devomax' for that matter - and will just be ignored by Westminster in any case. Sounds like a thankless position with an unachievable goal. |
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johng
Labour
Posts: 4,850
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Post by johng on May 14, 2021 22:30:18 GMT
I am going to go with a 50/30 AMS system. Based on 5 electoral regions which follow local authority boundaries: - SWE would lose Merthyr - and be renamed Gwent - SWC would gain Merthyr and lose Vale of Glamorgan - renamed East Glamorgan - SWW would gain VoG - renamed South & West Glamorgan - MWW would lose Meirionydd - renamed Dyfed Powys - NW would gain Meirionydd - renamed Gogledd Adjust number of seats in each region as required to maintain approx same seat sizes (as already done in SWC & NW). Maybe keep a 5% seat size variation as a preferred target but with a 10% absolute limit. But two big differences - list seats to be assigned on vote share in constituencies and not by separate list vote (simplifies voting and counting process and eliminates tactical split voting) - and party list order to be determined by order of votes cast and not by party preference (rewards constituency efforts by losing candidates from larger parties - and avoid 'coronations' of favoured candidates by minor parties) This isn't actually a wholly unlikely scenario. It's simple and could get cross-party consensus, though not as anyone's ideal. The ratio is a little more proportional than now, but not quite as proportional as Scotland. Six seats per region is a lot, but assigned by constituency ballot would be more acceptable.
A few issues for me personally though. I feel that Cardiff Bay and Westminster constituencies should, in some way, be aligned. I also really quite dislike the 'top-up' system of AMS. Six seats per region isn't ideal, though not using a second ballot paper and just totaling the vote for each party in each constituency for the region is a far better system than that used present. 5% is also quite difficult in parts of Wales due to large ward sizes unless you break up wards.
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Post by Penddu on May 15, 2021 2:09:11 GMT
I am going to go with a 50/30 AMS system. Based on 5 electoral regions which follow local authority boundaries: - SWE would lose Merthyr - and be renamed Gwent - SWC would gain Merthyr and lose Vale of Glamorgan - renamed East Glamorgan - SWW would gain VoG - renamed South & West Glamorgan - MWW would lose Meirionydd - renamed Dyfed Powys - NW would gain Meirionydd - renamed Gogledd Adjust number of seats in each region as required to maintain approx same seat sizes (as already done in SWC & NW). Maybe keep a 5% seat size variation as a preferred target but with a 10% absolute limit. But two big differences - list seats to be assigned on vote share in constituencies and not by separate list vote (simplifies voting and counting process and eliminates tactical split voting) - and party list order to be determined by order of votes cast and not by party preference (rewards constituency efforts by losing candidates from larger parties - and avoid 'coronations' of favoured candidates by minor parties) This isn't actually a wholly unlikely scenario. It's simple and could get cross-party consensus, though not as anyone's ideal. The ratio is a little more proportional than now, but not quite as proportional as Scotland. Six seats per region is a lot, but assigned by constituency ballot would be more acceptable.
A few issues for me personally though. I feel that Cardiff Bay and Westminster constituencies should, in some way, be aligned. I also really quite dislike the 'top-up' system of AMS. Six seats per region isn't ideal, though not using a second ballot paper and just totaling the vote for each party in each constituency for the region is a far better system than that used present. 5% is also quite difficult in parts of Wales due to large ward sizes unless you break up wards.
I went with 5 regions because it is close to what we have now - and is a close match to actual regions. But you could have 6 regions with 5 topup seats each....or 7 or 8 regions with 4 but that starts to get fiddly... |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 15, 2021 6:21:44 GMT
I am going to go with a 50/30 AMS system. Based on 5 electoral regions which follow local authority boundaries: - SWE would lose Merthyr - and be renamed Gwent - SWC would gain Merthyr and lose Vale of Glamorgan - renamed East Glamorgan - SWW would gain VoG - renamed South & West Glamorgan - MWW would lose Meirionydd - renamed Dyfed Powys - NW would gain Meirionydd - renamed Gogledd Adjust number of seats in each region as required to maintain approx same seat sizes (as already done in SWC & NW). Maybe keep a 5% seat size variation as a preferred target but with a 10% absolute limit. But two big differences - list seats to be assigned on vote share in constituencies and not by separate list vote (simplifies voting and counting process and eliminates tactical split voting) - and party list order to be determined by order of votes cast and not by party preference (rewards constituency efforts by losing candidates from larger parties - and avoid 'coronations' of favoured candidates by minor parties) I think you can only accommodate a 10% variation here (Gwent for example on these numbers has about 9.5 quotas) I make the numbers thus: Gwent - 9 constituencies + 6 list seats = 15 East Glamorgan - 10 constituencies + 6 list seats = 16 West Glamorgan - 11 constituencies + 6 list seats = 17 Dyfed Powys - 9 constituencies + 5 list seats = 14 Gwynedd/Gogledd - 11 constituencies* + 7 list seats = 18 * Yns Mon would be a bit oversized but I think we can live with that if we can live with it being massively undersized for Westminster I drew up a bunch of constituencies last night but had only saved South Wales and my PC restarted itself overnight  Dyfed Powys is awkward. my initial plan was to leave Montgomeryshire more or less unchanged (its in quota but toward the upper limit) and move Ystradgynlais into a Carmarthenshire seat but this caused major problems in the rest of the region. Another alternative is to keep Carmarthenshire intact for three seats but this causes problems with a cross Ceredegion/Powys seat. I hadn't managed to find a solution I liked. North Wales is relatively straightforward. As well as Anglesey, Dwyfor Meiryonedd, Arfon and Aberconwy remain unchanged. Clwyd West loses most of its Denbighshire territory and Vale of Clwydd loses the area around Denbigh itself, those areas to combine with parts of Clwyd South in a Denbigh seat and then four seats covering Flintshire and those parts of Wrexham not included in the Denbigh seat |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 15, 2021 7:34:48 GMT
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 15, 2021 7:47:26 GMT
This was the least bad option I could come up with in Mid Wales - probably something better could be achieved  |
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Post by hugh01 on May 15, 2021 9:20:03 GMT
 The Colwyn Bay seat is more or less the old Colwyn Borough Boundary, Rhyl and Prestatyn is also near the same as boundaries as the Old Rhuddlan Borough Council area (actauly Trefnant used to be in Colwyn before local gov reorganisation in 1996) and the Denbigh seat is the old Glyndwr District Boundaries minus Llanrhaeadr Ym Mochnant which went to Powys |
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cibwr
Plaid Cymru
Posts: 3,589
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Post by cibwr on May 15, 2021 9:41:11 GMT
Essentially some sort of AMS similar to current Scottish and Welsh systeme All the reports come out firmly against AMS |
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Post by Merseymike on May 15, 2021 10:04:48 GMT
Essentially some sort of AMS similar to current Scottish and Welsh systeme All the reports come out firmly against AMS I'm totally opposed to preference systems. If they are the only option I'd favour staying with FPTP. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 15, 2021 11:07:00 GMT
This was the least bad option I could come up with in Mid Wales - probably something better could be achieved Imgur has gone tits up so I can't display any images currently, but the situation in Mid & West Wales can be improved I think by having 8 constituencies rather than 9. The quota there is 8.58 so its hard to justify but of course this would be made up on the list anyway. Gwent with 9.48 quotas can easily be pushed up to 10 seats. This enables much closer match to district boundaries (basically 3 in Carmarthenshire, 2 each in Pembrokeshire and Powys and one in Ceredigeon with just a couple of small areas having to move (Ystradgynlais into the Eastern Carmarthenshire seat and the area around Cardigan itself into North Pembrokeshire). Also makes for a slightly better plan in Gwent |
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Post by Penddu on May 15, 2021 15:25:27 GMT
Essentially some sort of AMS similar to current Scottish and Welsh systeme All the reports come out firmly against AMS My personal preference is also STV and I was just throwing in an alternative AMS structure as it might have more chance of acceptance from Labour. |
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Post by Penddu on May 15, 2021 15:27:34 GMT
All the reports come out firmly against AMS I'm totally opposed to preference systems. If they are the only option I'd favour staying with FPTP. 'Staying' with FPTP?.. we were talking about Senedd which doesnt have FPTP. Maybe this is in wrong thread.... |
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