Hypothetical 2023 review with vaguely 1940s style rules

[YL]

Inspired by some of the discussion of the 1940s reviews, I thought I'd try something in similar style, but of course using modern local government boundaries and electorates. The approach won't be exactly the same as that used in the 1940s, but it will be similar in taking rather more notice of major local government boundaries and less of electoral equality.

The basic approach:

1. The electoral quota is 73393, as in the actual 2023 review.

2. Subject to adjustments under rule 3:
(a) any London or metropolitan borough, and any unitary authority which is largely urban and/or takes its name from a town or city, will be designated as a Parliamentary Borough.

(b) In two-tier areas, a district which is named after and dominated by the urban area of a single town or city will also be designated as a Parliamentary Borough, subject to having an electorate of at least two thirds of the quota.

(c) Any unitary authority not classified as a Borough will be a Parliamentary County. In England, every two tier county will also be designated as a Parliamentary County, but with areas classified as Boroughs under (b) excluded.

3. Any area which would otherwise be designated as a Borough or County but has an electorate under two thirds of the quota will be merged with a neighbouring Borough or County, barring the same exceptions as in the actual 2023 review. (This affects the City of London, Scilly, Rutland, Merthyr Tydfil and Clackmannanshire. I will treat Ynys Môn, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Orkney and Shetland as exceptions, as the actual review did.)

4. The number of constituencies to be allocated to a Borough or County is to be decided using the harmonic mean rule, i.e. it is chosen so that the average electorate for the constituencies within the Borough or County is as close as possible to the electoral quota. Within a Borough or County, the aim will be for each constituency to have an electorate reasonably close to the average for the Borough or County, but I won't impose a specific tolerance. Other criteria used when dividing a Borough or County will be similar to those used in recent reviews.

NB: this is a thought experiment more than something that I'd strongly advocate.

[YL]

Let's start with Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, as collectively they contain examples of lots of what can happen.



Slough 87846

Windsor & Maidenhead
Windsor 50350
Maidenhead 57345

Bracknell Forest 86365

Wokingham
Wokingham 59099
Earley & Woodley 66159

Reading
North 51642
South 55899

West Berkshire
Newbury 60225
Berkshire Downs 60207

Oxford
South 50568
North 49205

Oxfordshire
Abingdon 82119
Henley & Didcot 75769
Bicester & Thame 78584
Banbury 80049
Witney 83437
(nb Oxfordshire without Oxford is extremely close to the threshold for a sixth seat)

Buckinghamshire
Buckingham 76864
Beaconsfield 78524
Chesham & Amersham 80535
Wycombe 79770
Aylesbury 83121

Milton Keynes
Newport Pagnell 61982
Bletchley 59890
Stony Stratford 66401

[doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️]

YL this is stunning, thank you for doing it

[YL]

Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire:



Cambridge 84955

Cambridgeshire

Huntingdon 79255
South 80135
Ely 74065
North East 70806
St Neots 77581

Peterborough

East 62537
South West 61913

Bedford

Kempston 59296
Bedford 63690

Central Bedfordshire

Biggleswade 68007
Flitwick & Leighton Buzzard 73401
Dunstable 70737

Luton

South 64111
North 68080

[YL]

South and West Yorkshire:



A bit less radical than some other areas.

Sheffield Hillsborough 72484, Mosborough 68372, Heeley 69186, Central 70453, Brightside 69621, Hallam 61898

Rotherham Rother Valley 65806, Central 63547, Wentworth 65883

Doncaster Don Valley 68845, Central 73457, North 76706

Barnsley Penistone 63935, South 57811, North 59388

Wakefield Wakefield 66745, Hemsworth 64406, Castleford 62899, Normanton & Pontefract 60506

Kirklees Dewsbury 82099, Batley & Spen 80162, Huddersfield 81307, Colne Valley 69340

Leeds Morley & Rothwell 69776, Pudsey 70270, Hunslet 83441, Headingley 75396, Otley 71607, Roundhay 70976, Harehills 68035, Wetherby 65078
(compass point names are a mess if the City is being treated as a unit)

plus the outgoing map used unchanged in Bradford and Calderdale

Better electoral equality in Leeds, Kirklees and Sheffield could of course be achieved with the odd ward split.

[Harry Hayfield]

Ceremonial County of Dyfed

Ceredigion and the Preselis 74,063
Pembrokeshire Coast 76,820
Carmarthenshire 72,036
Llanelli and Ammanford 70,542

[YL]

Devon and Dorset:



Exeter 92188

Torbay Torbay 49308, Paignton 53565

Plymouth Devonport 68144, Moor View 59291, Sutton 63576

Devon Exmouth 78713, Tiverton & Honiton 81172, Newton Abbot 72956, South Hams 69785, Central 73491, Torridge & Tavistock 80810, North 76455

Dorset West 75390, South 78196, North 72109, East 74017

BCP Poole 72162, Canford Heath 69469, Bournemouth Central 69743, Christchurch & Boscombe 76205

... or something like that.

[ilerda]

Are there examples from pre-74 of county borough boundaries being crossed and part of a CB being included with a county district? I know it wasn’t the preference but surely it was done in some circumstances? Exeter feels like it might deserve that treatment in this context.

I personally have always regretted that we moved away from the pre-74 model for what we lost both in terms of truly local governance and in the designing of constituencies based on cohesive local government units.

[Pete Whitehead]

Mar 20, 2024 8:07:17 GMT ilerda said:

Are there examples from pre-74 of county borough boundaries being crossed and part of a CB being included with a county district? I know it wasn’t the preference but surely it was done in some circumstances? Exeter feels like it might deserve that treatment in this context.

I personally have always regretted that we moved away from the pre-74 model for what we lost both in terms of truly local governance and in the designing of constituencies based on cohesive local government units.

Reading, Luton - surely plenty of others

[Pete Whitehead]

Actually I'm not even sure was Luton a county borough? I think Reading was

[hullenedge]

Mar 20, 2024 8:41:25 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Actually I'm not even sure was Luton a county borough? I think Reading was

Definitely a CB.

[hullenedge]

Perusing the list of CBs and many 'crossed territory' for parliamentary constituencies. Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Bradford for starters. Others like Dewsbury and Canterbury were too small to sustain a seat and probably should not have been granted CB status.

[YL]

Mar 20, 2024 8:07:17 GMT ilerda said:

Are there examples from pre-74 of county borough boundaries being crossed and part of a CB being included with a county district? I know it wasn’t the preference but surely it was done in some circumstances? Exeter feels like it might deserve that treatment in this context.

Yes, some boundaries were crossed and others have given examples. However I think there were very few in the 1947 report which was my main inspiration here, and the wording suggests that in most cases they did it because they were expecting the neighbouring area to be added to the borough anyway (though Haltemprice never was).

Edit: even in 1947 there were also several CBs whose boundaries were crossed because they were just too small.

[finsobruce]

Mar 20, 2024 8:41:25 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Actually I'm not even sure was Luton a county borough? I think Reading was

Luton became a county borough in 1964. Solihull was given county borough status at the same time.

They had applied to be one as far back as 1912 and made several further attempts in the 1950s. The last of these in 1955 being dropped by the Town Council when they foolishly believed a government promise of local government reform.

The rejection in 1914 was allegedly down to the government wanting to get an Irish Home Rule Bill through the Commons.

[minionofmidas]

Clearly once this is finished, the next step is 50s rules, 50s boundaries and modern electorates

[Pete Whitehead]

[East Anglian Lefty]

For these purposes, Thurrock, Southend and Harlow are parliamentary boroughs. Brentwood isn't quite urban enough to meet the definition and whilst Castle Point is, it's not named after a settlement so it doesn't count. So that's two seats for Thurrock, two seats for Southend, one for Harlow and fourteen for the rest of Essex.



Thurrock West 55640
Thurrock East 57835
Basildon 77530
Castle Point 69309
Southend West 68778
Southend East 62913
Rayleigh 67292
Billericay & Wickford 58628
Brentwood & Ongar 78622
Epping Forest 79608
Harlow 59682
Saffron Walden 67936
Witham 79609
Chelmsford 80793
Braintree 83834
Colchester 71247
Maldon 81261
Harwich & Colchester East 77329
Clacton 70942

Positives: the very neat Basildon seat, most of the seats that could stay unchanged or almost.
Negatives: Colchester is ugly and in practice 1940s rules would mean splitting Lexden & Braiswick ward, overpopulating the Colchester seat and keeping the surrounding rural ones smaller to compensate.

[East Anglian Lefty]

In Suffolk, Ipswich is the only parliamentary borough and gets one oversized seat. The rest of the county gets six seats.



Ipswich 92505
Sudbury 71070
Newmarket 74203
Bury St Edmunds 82119
Dunwich* 81618
Woodbridge 75172
Lowestoft 80848

*I know that it's traditional at this point to resurrect Eye as a constituency name and that this is the sort of nonsense name that 1940s commissions loved. I think this is absurd, so I've used another even less appropriate historic constituency name instead.

[Pete Whitehead]

I'm not sure if the rules mean Croydon should have 3 or 4 seats. Either works. Waltham Forest and Greenwich are unfortunate but most of it works quite well. London as a whole has 79 seats on this syetm

[Pete Whitehead]