Toylyyev
Mebyon Kernow
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Post by Toylyyev on Oct 22, 2021 18:08:03 GMT
The initial proposals are the worst set of Northern Ireland constituency proposals I have seen so far. There is absolutely no need for Belfast South to expand that far into County Down, and nor should North Down take in any Belfast wards. And whose idea was it to include any part of County Armagh in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, or remove an integral town, Dungannon, from it?? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2021 13:52:22 GMT
It's high back unrounded, so not like cool, which is rounded. It's like a back i - a sound that doesn't exist in English. If you try and pronounce kill with the vowel in the back of your throat, that will be roughly it. What he means is that the lips are in the “ee” position, but the rest of the mouth is saying “oo”. (Incidentally, this is also how to pronounce the vowel in Japanese which is written in European script as “u”). The opposite combination (the lips saying “oo” and the tongue saying “ee”) is the much more common German ü & French u. However the way he explained it wasn't totally incomprehensible gibberish |
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YL
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Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Oct 25, 2021 18:32:22 GMT
But anyway, just to cause trouble, here's a (probably equally deficient) map that: shows a bit more regard than the BCNI plan for LA boundaries; keeps each seat to a maximum of two authorities; has no orphan wards; has no split wards; does not use the additional tolerance; and results in 18 seats of which each is recognizably the successor of one of the current seats.
  East Antrim - 73129.
North Antrim - 73370.
South Antrim - 72898.
Belfast East - 70297. Belfast North - 72571.
Belfast South - 70391. Belfast West - 69869. Coleraine - 72107. Derry - 69890.
North Down - 71358. South Down - 71947. Fermanagh and Dungannon - 71518.
Lisburn and Banbridge - 73827. Newry and Armagh - 74925.
Omagh and Strabane - 70594. Portadown and Lurgan - 72615.
Strangford - 73355. Mid Ulster - 71027.
What I have at the moment is pretty similar to this. Indeed "west of the Bann" I believe it is identical, and some other constituencies are too. The main differences I have are in the Belfast area: following a suggestion upthread by heverlee2019 I've got Dunmurry, Derryaghy and Lambeg wards in Belfast South, as opposed to West above. I think they fit a little better in South, and this also allows South to avoid extending so much into rural areas. This means West must take Woodvale and Shankill, which I think is desirable anyway, and I also included Legoniel to geto the stricter tolerance. That in turn pushes North to take all the urban Glengormley wards, which I think is also an improvement, though the boundaries up there are still a bit messy. In turn that means South Antrim must extend a little further south into areas west of Lisburn; I'm aware that this pushes it just into County Down. This combined with the different Belfast South pushes the Lisburn & Banbridge seat a little further east. Elsewhere I think the main difference is that I've retained Downpatrick in South Down and Ballynahinch in Strangford. Any views on this from those who know NI well? (I know parts of it quite well, but there are bits I don't have much feel for at all.) |
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Post by aidanthomson on Oct 31, 2021 13:16:29 GMT
But anyway, just to cause trouble, here's a (probably equally deficient) map that: shows a bit more regard than the BCNI plan for LA boundaries; keeps each seat to a maximum of two authorities; has no orphan wards; has no split wards; does not use the additional tolerance; and results in 18 seats of which each is recognizably the successor of one of the current seats.
East Antrim - 73129.
North Antrim - 73370.
South Antrim - 72898.
Belfast East - 70297. Belfast North - 72571.
Belfast South - 70391. Belfast West - 69869. Coleraine - 72107. Derry - 69890.
North Down - 71358. South Down - 71947. Fermanagh and Dungannon - 71518.
Lisburn and Banbridge - 73827. Newry and Armagh - 74925.
Omagh and Strabane - 70594. Portadown and Lurgan - 72615.
Strangford - 73355. Mid Ulster - 71027.
What I have at the moment is pretty similar to this. Indeed "west of the Bann" I believe it is identical, and some other constituencies are too. The main differences I have are in the Belfast area: following a suggestion upthread by heverlee2019 I've got Dunmurry, Derryaghy and Lambeg wards in Belfast South, as opposed to West above. I think they fit a little better in South, and this also allows South to avoid extending so much into rural areas. This means West must take Woodvale and Shankill, which I think is desirable anyway, and I also included Legoniel to geto the stricter tolerance. That in turn pushes North to take all the urban Glengormley wards, which I think is also an improvement, though the boundaries up there are still a bit messy. In turn that means South Antrim must extend a little further south into areas west of Lisburn; I'm aware that this pushes it just into County Down. This combined with the different Belfast South pushes the Lisburn & Banbridge seat a little further east. Elsewhere I think the main difference is that I've retained Downpatrick in South Down and Ballynahinch in Strangford. Any views on this from those who know NI well? (I know parts of it quite well, but there are bits I don't have much feel for at all.) I'd say that that works pretty well for the most part. I'd try to keep the Belfast North/West boundary along Crumlin Road as much as possible, rather than move Legoniel into West. I don't know if there is a tidy solution for Newtownabbey, given some of the ward shapes, but certainly moving more of Glengormley into Belfast North is tidier than at present. Rathcoole also works best in Belfast North, Jordanstown in East Antrim, Carnmoney I'm not sure about. I'm increasingly of the view that the BCNI have got the Belfast East/North Down boundary right, awkward though it looks, as putting Dundonald into North Down really doesn't work that well. Dundonald's strongest links are with east Belfast, and it's separated from Holywood by miles of countryside and a pretty steep hill. Here are my own latest thoughts, taking into account your thoughts above and heverlee2019 's ideas. Every seat is above the UK minimum, but there are places where it would be easy to invoke the NI minimum on the grounds of minimum change (e.g., the boundaries at Mid Ulster/FST, East Londonderry/North Antrim, Belfast North/East Antrim, or Belfast West/Lagan Valley—I've got Derryaghy in the former but only to make the numbers fit).   |
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nyx
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Post by nyx on Oct 31, 2021 21:42:16 GMT
I couldn't help but wonder whether a map including an extra Belfast seat could have been doable, e.g. like this. It looks neat on a map but the one big disadvantage is in the amount of change to existing seats.   |
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Post by aidanthomson on Oct 31, 2021 22:41:14 GMT
I couldn't help but wonder whether a map including an extra Belfast seat could have been doable, e.g. like this. It looks neat on a map but the one big disadvantage is in the amount of change to existing seats. No, Belfast is a city with four distinct parts to it, and you mess with that at your peril! Many locals tend to think in terms of coming specifically from one of the four main compass points within it, not just the city itself. While I realise that your example here isn't the only possible five-way split of greater Belfast, there are also multiple pitchfork cases in this particular case (crossing the Lagan in both the pink and the green seats; the combination of the upper Shankill, Poleglass and Malone in one seat; the pink seat's managing to split communities in inner north, west, south and east Belfast, etc.). |
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Post by therealriga on Jan 27, 2022 17:19:36 GMT
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 27, 2022 17:52:54 GMT
I settled down for the evening to read Nicholas Whyte's submission but it turned out to be extremely brief. Next..
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YL
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Post by YL on Jan 27, 2022 18:55:35 GMT
Of the numbered ones, only 001 and 018 actually propose any extensive counterproposals.
010 thinks Saintfield "would be best served to remain in Strangford rather than to be dragged into Belfast and suffer the indignity of sectarianism which is prevalent in Belfast's very being" while 015 bluntly says that it should not be moved "as it does not reflect the towns unionist majority". Meanwhile 011, coming from a rather different perspective, thinks that the move of Saintfield etc. "appears to be designed to wipe out nationalist and Alliance chances of electoral success".
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Post by relique on Jan 27, 2022 19:05:08 GMT
Sinn Féin proposes three seats in Belfast. Outside Belfast, a Sperrin, a Loughside, a Glenshane.
I'm no expert, but from afar, the constituencies seem appropriate.
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Post by finsobruce on Jan 27, 2022 19:17:40 GMT
Sinn Féin proposes three seats in Belfast. Outside Belfast, a Sperrin, a Loughside, a Glenshane. I'm no expert, but from afar, the constituencies seem appropriate. I like the idea of an "Outside Belfast" constituency.  |
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Post by therealriga on Jan 27, 2022 19:28:04 GMT
I settled down for the evening to read Nicholas Whyte's submission but it turned out to be extremely brief. Next.. That surprised me too, because he's normally on the ball with extensive and well-reasoned counter-proposals and had some ideas on Twitter too. He sounded a little disinterested in his submission. |
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YL
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Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Jan 27, 2022 19:38:21 GMT
Sinn Féin proposes three seats in Belfast. Outside Belfast, a Sperrin, a Loughside, a Glenshane. I'm no expert, but from afar, the constituencies seem appropriate. I'm sure I've seen "Loughside" appear previously as a proposed name for a constituency on the shore of Belfast Lough, but this one refers to Lough Neagh. It's basically a renamed South Antrim extended to include the area between the Lough and Lurgan/Portadown. "Sperrin" is a successor to West Tyrone, and "Glenshane" is a successor to East 'Derry; the latter doesn't include Coleraine, which I guess SF think might be a useful change to make from their point of view. Their "Mid Ulster" has fairly little overlap with the current seat, basically being the Dungannon area together with parts of north-west Co Armagh. Cookstown goes to Sperrin and Magherafelt to Glenshane. Meanwhile, with North Antrim gaining Coleraine (not in Co Antrim of course) and East Antrim gaining much of Belfast's northern sprawl, a new "Mid Antrim" appears covering Larne and Ballymena. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 27, 2022 19:38:50 GMT
I settled down for the evening to read Nicholas Whyte's submission but it turned out to be extremely brief. Next.. That surprised me too, because he's normally on the ball with extensive and well-reasoned counter-proposals and had some ideas on Twitter too. He sounded a little disinterested in his submission. Maybe he left the writing up of his submission to the last day, like half of us on here seemed to have done.. |
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Post by therealriga on Jan 27, 2022 19:39:15 GMT
Sinn Féin proposes three seats in Belfast. Outside Belfast, a Sperrin, a Loughside, a Glenshane. I'm no expert, but from afar, the constituencies seem appropriate. I thought they were a bit of a mess. Very ironic too that Sinn Féin are now arguing for 3 seats in Belfast. In the 1994/5 review when the commission initially proposed 3 seats in Belfast, making arguments identical to the ones SF are making now, SF fought strenuously for the retention of 4 seats. Every community organisation was co-opted into the fight to make submissions. It was so obvious that the commission themselves commented that there seemed to be an organised campaign. I guess it's a sign of the shifting political geography since 1995 (when Belfast North wasn't seriously in play for SF) that they've changed their tune. Their main counter-proposal in 1994 incidentally argued for 6 Greater Belfast seats (!) which would have included Bangor and Carrickfergus. |
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Post by therealriga on Jan 27, 2022 19:43:11 GMT
Sinn Féin proposes three seats in Belfast. Outside Belfast, a Sperrin, a Loughside, a Glenshane. I'm no expert, but from afar, the constituencies seem appropriate. , but this one refers to Lough Neagh. It's basically a renamed South Antrim extended to include the area between the Lough and Lurgan/Portadown. "Sperrin" is a successor to West Tyrone, and "Glenshane" is a successor to East 'Derry; the latter doesn't include Coleraine, which I guess SF think might be a useful change to make from their point of view. Their "Mid Ulster" has fairly little overlap with the current seat, basically being the Dungannon area together with parts of north-west Co Armagh. Cookstown goes to Sperrin and Magherafelt to Glenshane. Meanwhile, with North Antrim gaining Coleraine (not in Co Antrim of course) and East Antrim gaining much of Belfast's northern sprawl, a new "Mid Antrim" appears covering Larne and Ballymena. All three names have been proposed before by the commission themselves. Glenshane and Sperrin in the zombie reviews and Loughside in 1980 for the greatly reduced North Down. Their argument was that it would avoid confusion between North Down council elections and the larger Westminster constituency. Lagan Valley was also to simply be Lagan in the 1980 proposals. |
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YL
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Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Jan 27, 2022 19:50:20 GMT
Yes, it must be that 1980 proposal for North Down I was remembering, or perhaps a later proposal along the same lines. It doesn't say a lot for the suitability of the name for SF's version (which looks like a mess of a constituency anyway).
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Post by relique on Jan 27, 2022 20:38:17 GMT
Sinn Féin proposes three seats in Belfast. Outside Belfast, a Sperrin, a Loughside, a Glenshane. I'm no expert, but from afar, the constituencies seem appropriate. I like the idea of an "Outside Belfast" constituency.  It reminds me of the discussions on the french Regions new boundaries. I used to joke there should only be two Regions. Île-de-France and France. And we would just put up a wall or something.
in my union, we also used to hold inter-regional meetings with unions from Orléans to Dijon, through Lille, excluding Paris. Just because we didn't like parisians (which, politically, were already in the woke nonsense).
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Jan 27, 2022 20:50:10 GMT
I like the idea of an "Outside Belfast" constituency. It reminds me of the discussions on the french Regions new boundaries. I used to joke there should only be two Regions. Île-de-France and France. And we would just put up a wall or something.
in my union, we also used to hold inter-regional meetings with unions from Orléans to Dijon, through Lille, excluding Paris. Just because we didn't like parisians (which, politically, were already in the woke nonsense).
"If I could I'd build a wall around old Donegal, the North and South, to keep them out, by God I'd build it tall" ("Don't despair, if you dare, 'cos the answer lies with me: there's a wall that's steep, that going cheap, somewhere in Germany") |
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Post by finsobruce on Jan 27, 2022 21:07:19 GMT
I like the idea of an "Outside Belfast" constituency. It reminds me of the discussions on the french Regions new boundaries. I used to joke there should only be two Regions. Île-de-France and France. And we would just put up a wall or something.
in my union, we also used to hold inter-regional meetings with unions from Orléans to Dijon, through Lille, excluding Paris. Just because we didn't like parisians (which, politically, were already in the woke nonsense).
ah, Le Cordon Sanitaire! |
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