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Post by greenhert on Jan 11, 2022 17:40:29 GMT
Volume 8 miraculously only has real MPs in it β the genuine ones clearly believe in just-in-time management: - 9907: Simon Baynes MP agrees with Sarah Atherton about Brymbo and Minera and about Pant, Johnstown, and Ponciau South. As part of the series of dominoes that sets off, he sends Corwen and Llandrillo on their merry way back into Denbighshire. He also objects to the "Glyndwr" bit of "Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr", preferring "Montgomeryshire and Clwyd South".
- 9908: Geraint Davies MP opposes the Commission's proposals in Swansea. He'd like a Central constituency instead of a Central and North one, although his version of "Central" extends all the way out to the Mayals ward of Mumbles community (which he wishes to retain the split of).
- 9922: Jessica Morden MP supports the Commission's proposals for Newport East
- 9929: Wayne David MP opposes at considerable length the Commission's proposals for Islwyn and for Newport West and Caerphilly. He counter-proposes a Caerphilly constituency (including Blackwood and Pontllanfraith) and a Newport West and Newbridge constituency β a good old Red on Red dust-up between him and Chris Evans' less entertaining namesake back at 9500!
- 9930: Alun Cairns MP opposes (with more words per ward than Mr David) the Commission's proposal to remove the Dinas Powys ward from the Vale of Glamorgan constituency
- 9932: Fay Jones MP supports the Commission's proposals for Brecon and Radnor, both in terms of moving Ystalyfera High School into the constituency, and in terms of dropping the Association of British Counties' superfluous -shire
- 9982: Dr James Davies MP waffles, endorses the Conservative Party's counter-proposals (at least he's not pretending they're his own idea!) and suggests renaming Clwyd to Clwyd West and Delyn to Clwyd East. The good doctor will make a noble lord yet.
- 10023: Jo Stevens MP rejects your reality and substitutes her own, but supports the Commission's proposals for Cardiff Central
- 10032: Kevin Brennan MP supports the Commission's proposals for Cardiff West
- 10043: Ruth Jones MP (again, not to be confused with her more famous namesake) adds to the great Red-on-Red bunfight in Gwent and opposes the Commission's proposals for Newport West and Caerphilly in a completely incompatible way from how Wayne David opposed them back in 9929. Mrs Jones' counterproposal extends only to the Newport West constituency, where she would take the existing constituency (respecting the mighty River Usk β maybe 9424 was an MP after all) and add the Risca East and West wards. It is unclear how she intends neighbouring constituencies to fit within the electoral range.
Dr Davies MP surely means Clwyd Central. Clwyd East would be Alyn & Deeside, geographically. Clwyd has not existed as a county for more than 25 years anyway, so Alyn & Deeside should revert to being called East Flintshire, and Delyn West Flintshire. The only realistic way to avoid removing Dinas Powys from the Vale of Glamorgan constituency is combine Cardiff with Newport, creating a "Bassaleg & St Mellons" constituency from parts of Newport West and northeast Cardiff. Swansea South and Swansea North would be more workable, at the expense of abolishing Gower and creating a "leftovers" constituency stretching from the Gower Peninsula to villages west of Neath.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Jan 11, 2022 17:56:26 GMT
I have now flicked through the submissions. Volumes 3-5 are certainly something and must have involved a significant number of hours work. Did you find the full Green Party submission? I am intrigued by their idea of 'Merthyr Tydfil and the Northern Rhondda' among others. Volume 8 will not disappoint either as it has plenty of MP and oddball submissions.
No, I've only found fragments of the Green Party's submission. But it was certainly eyecatching how they proposed a Cardiff Bute constituency (vol. 6 p. 29) that excluded Butetown and an Eifionnydd constituency (vol. 7 p. 352) that seems not to have much of Eifionnydd in it, but that does include all of Arfon. Not found how they've split the Rhondda yet, but I'm curious about that one too! A "Rhondda Fach" that includes Rhondda Fawr and a "Rhondda Fawr" that includes the Fach?
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Post by π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ on Jan 11, 2022 18:05:39 GMT
The only realistic way to avoid removing Dinas Powys from the Vale of Glamorgan constituency is combine Cardiff with Newport, creating a "Bassaleg & St Mellons" constituency from parts of Newport West and northeast Cardiff. Not true. Cairns' counterproposal re: Dinas Powys forms part of the wider Conservative counterproposal, which comes up with an ingenious (if slightly ugly) solution to Cardiff. Both the Conservative and Labour counterproposals are boring, mainly tinkering around the edges ones. Disappointingly, this will have the effect of saving Saville-Roberts.
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Post by π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ on Jan 11, 2022 18:10:59 GMT
I imagine the shedloads of dross will be even worse when we get English comments, given how much bigger England is. I donβt envy the Boundary Commissions having to wade through all this crap. Itβs a miracle that they manage to extract some needles from the haystack rather than just looking at the submissions from the main political parties (which however tendentious will follow the rules). I'm disappointed that the Welsh Commission hasn't tried to group/classify the short comments. It would certainly be helpful to have a "complaints about the process" section to ignore. On the other end, it would be helpful to have the multi-constituency plans from parties and individuals separated out -- there is some good stuff in there, and some of the independent thought in there is not just a euphemism for being mad.
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Post by islington on Jan 11, 2022 18:21:16 GMT
I have now flicked through the submissions. Volumes 3-5 are certainly something and must have involved a significant number of hours work.
Did you find the full Green Party submission? I am intrigued by their idea of 'Merthyr Tydfil and the Northern Rhondda' among others.
Volume 8 will not disappoint either as it has plenty of MP and oddball submissions.
No, I've only found fragments of the Green Party's submission. But it was certainly eyecatching how they proposed a Cardiff Bute constituency (vol. 6 p. 29) that excluded Butetown and an Eifionnydd constituency (vol. 7 p. 352) that seems not to have much of Eifionnydd in it, but that does include all of Arfon. Not found how they've split the Rhondda yet, but I'm curious about that one too! If it included actual Bute I'd be deeply impressed.
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Post by greatkingrat on Jan 11, 2022 18:54:42 GMT
The official party responses are surprisingly lousy. The Lib Dems (9992) propose a constituency called "Aberavon with Maesteg and South East Swansea". It's not wholly stupid on the ground, but that name really fails to sell it. But for something truly hysterical see Plaid Cymru's submission (10021) β they're not happy with the Commission's Plaidimander to save Saville-Roberts' seat and have come up with a bizarre constituency that extends from Llanbrynmair to Llansanffraid Glan Conwy to try and get two constituencies with their largest part in Gwynedd. Further South, the Plaidis extend the Llanelli constituency across Carmarthen Bay (I don't think any of us had thought of that one!) and then go for random carnage, splitting all four of Monmouthshire, Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent, and Merthyr Tydfil completely needlessly (it's a version of let's fit four whole constituencies in West Glamorgan, but drawing four incredibly ugly ones there, with a key that doesn't even match the colours of the constituencies on their map, yr Iesu a wylodd). I can guess who they used to come up with their names. Valleys of Afan and Tawe?
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Post by aberdarian on Jan 11, 2022 19:17:30 GMT
Neath Constituency Labour Party ("fully endorsed by Christina Rees MP, Jeremy Miles MS, former Assembly Member Gwenda Thomas, and former Member of Parliament Lord Hain") have proposed (9870) a Neath & Swansea East constituency with an electorate of 92,900 and a Brecon & Radnor constituency with an electorate of 54,854. So much for following the rules.
This is their justification:
Equally so, a Swansea East and Neath should βnot subject to the operation of the UK Electoral Quotaβ, given its cultural and geographic ties with both Neath Town and Swansea City Centre. This is justifiable given the unique characteristics of each constituency.
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Post by π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ on Jan 11, 2022 20:37:18 GMT
Neath Constituency Labour Party ("fully endorsed by Christina Rees MP, Jeremy Miles MS, former Assembly Member Gwenda Thomas, and former Member of Parliament Lord Hain") have proposed (9870) a Neath & Swansea East constituency with an electorate of 92,900 and a Brecon & Radnor constituency with an electorate of 54,854. So much for following the rules. This is their justification: Equally so, a Swansea East and Neath should βnot subject to the operation of the UK Electoral Quotaβ, given its cultural and geographic ties with both Neath Town and Swansea City Centre. This is justifiable given the unique characteristics of each constituency. This is the sort of thing that makes me despair of the quality of Welsh public life. And I would say the same if she was a red-meat-eating Tory.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Jan 11, 2022 21:52:17 GMT
Neath Constituency Labour Party ("fully endorsed by Christina Rees MP, Jeremy Miles MS, former Assembly Member Gwenda Thomas, and former Member of Parliament Lord Hain") have proposed (9870) a Neath & Swansea East constituency with an electorate of 92,900 and a Brecon & Radnor constituency with an electorate of 54,854. So much for following the rules. This is their justification: Equally so, a Swansea East and Neath should βnot subject to the operation of the UK Electoral Quotaβ, given its cultural and geographic ties with both Neath Town and Swansea City Centre. This is justifiable given the unique characteristics of each constituency. What is that supposed to mean?
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,612
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jan 12, 2022 1:26:26 GMT
Neath Constituency Labour Party ("fully endorsed by Christina Rees MP, Jeremy Miles MS, former Assembly Member Gwenda Thomas, and former Member of Parliament Lord Hain") have proposed (9870) a Neath & Swansea East constituency with an electorate of 92,900 and a Brecon & Radnor constituency with an electorate of 54,854. So much for following the rules. This is their justification: Equally so, a Swansea East and Neath should βnot subject to the operation of the UK Electoral Quotaβ, given its cultural and geographic ties with both Neath Town and Swansea City Centre. This is justifiable given the unique characteristics of each constituency. What is that supposed to mean? "I don't want to have a large division, the rules must be bent to suit me."
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 12, 2022 7:16:11 GMT
I imagine the shedloads of dross will be even worse when we get English comments, given how much bigger England is. I donβt envy the Boundary Commissions having to wade through all this crap. Itβs a miracle that they manage to extract some needles from the haystack rather than just looking at the submissions from the main political parties (which however tendentious will follow the rules). I'm disappointed that the Welsh Commission hasn't tried to group/classify the short comments. It would certainly be helpful to have a "complaints about the process" section to ignore. On the other end, it would be helpful to have the multi-constituency plans from parties and individuals separated out -- there is some good stuff in there, and some of the independent thought in there is not just a euphemism for being mad. I agree, but there would be an insurrection of pitchfork waving peasants if their comments were hived off into a large volume marked irrelevantβ¦
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,283
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Post by YL on Jan 12, 2022 8:27:02 GMT
Surely they should just separate out the ones which actually contain a counterproposal. Even if that includes ones which propose just one constituency without trying to fit it in to a wider plan or ones which break the electorate rules like that Neath Labour proposal, that'd make it much easier to find the ones which are worth reading.
ISTR in the last review the BCE did have a box you could tick on their consultation website which filtered the responses by whether there was a counterproposal.
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,025
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Post by ilerda on Jan 12, 2022 9:34:27 GMT
Neath Constituency Labour Party ("fully endorsed by Christina Rees MP, Jeremy Miles MS, former Assembly Member Gwenda Thomas, and former Member of Parliament Lord Hain") have proposed (9870) a Neath & Swansea East constituency with an electorate of 92,900 and a Brecon & Radnor constituency with an electorate of 54,854. So much for following the rules. This is their justification: Equally so, a Swansea East and Neath should βnot subject to the operation of the UK Electoral Quotaβ, given its cultural and geographic ties with both Neath Town and Swansea City Centre. This is justifiable given the unique characteristics of each constituency. What is that supposed to mean? Incredible insight from them to realise that a constituency called "Swansea East and Neath" would have ties to both Swansea and Neath. It really is Einstein-level stuff.
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Post by edgbaston on Jan 12, 2022 10:34:14 GMT
Neath Constituency Labour Party ("fully endorsed by Christina Rees MP, Jeremy Miles MS, former Assembly Member Gwenda Thomas, and former Member of Parliament Lord Hain") have proposed (9870) a Neath & Swansea East constituency with an electorate of 92,900 and a Brecon & Radnor constituency with an electorate of 54,854. So much for following the rules. This is their justification: Equally so, a Swansea East and Neath should βnot subject to the operation of the UK Electoral Quotaβ, given its cultural and geographic ties with both Neath Town and Swansea City Centre. This is justifiable given the unique characteristics of each constituency. And this is in a place where Labour are the dominant and governing force at every level. What a joke and so unintentionally telling of local competence.
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Post by π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ on Jan 12, 2022 19:55:31 GMT
Okay, let's use a bit of Excel-fu to identify the contributions where the next contribution starts at least 6 pages later. This pulls out a nice subset of 21 of the fullest contributions, including all four main parties and the obvious nutters from the Association of British Counties: Just posting this as a reading list for now, in case anyone else wants to look at these. Edit 1: I'm aware that this will chop off the last submission in each volume as a negative number. Those should be checked for inclusion on the reading list manually. At least the three-volume handwritten one merits inclusion. Edit 2: I'm also mindful that this list likely includes several posters here (and I obviously recognise at least one straight away: cough, I'm from Neath and no-one would ever accuse me of being a constituency Labour Party). If anyone wants to own up to any of these, that would be fun.
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Post by bjornhattan on Jan 12, 2022 20:13:44 GMT
There's also BCW-9622, which spans three volumes and 42 pages - and is entirely handwritten, including maps.
Edit: Which I now see you've mentioned - you must have made that edit between when I started writing this post and posted it.
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Post by aberdarian on Jan 12, 2022 23:41:20 GMT
I think I might be responsible for the 2 contributions from ABERDARE (not sure where the all capital letters come from). My user name probably gives it away. I think my proposals are reasonably sensible for South East Wales but it all goes a bit tits up after that. I knew I was in trouble when I ended up putting Ogmore Vale in with the Rhondda. Doubt that will be popular. Probably not as daft as putting wards close to Bridgend town centre in Aberafan-Porthcawl mind.
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Post by minionofmidas on Jan 13, 2022 2:20:32 GMT
Finally looked at that handwritten submission. Should be adopted wholesale, complete with spelling errors and odd constituency names, just to reward the anonymous person's effort.
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 13, 2022 7:36:14 GMT
Curious about the contribution from Burnham on Sea....
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,283
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Post by YL on Jan 13, 2022 8:09:16 GMT
Finally looked at that handwritten submission. Should be adopted wholesale, complete with spelling errors and odd constituency names, just to reward the anonymous person's effort. I skim read it. I got the impression that in many ways it was rather good, though I may have missed something. Like my submission (which is the obvious one in π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ's list) I suspect it is too radical and too far from the BCW's initial approach to have much influence, though.
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