European Parliament election 2014

[tricky]

Dec 1, 2013 23:55:35 GMT Richard Allen said:

Nov 30, 2013 21:59:30 GMT tricky said:

Quite. The actual argument that really concerns people is about whether to use d'hondt or Saint Lague divisors in the apportionment between nations within the UK for parliamentary boundaries.

May I ask what your position is on this subject?

Personally I favour Saint-Lague on the grounds that it is slightly more complex and thus more likely to confuse the innumerate.

While Saint-Lague obviously carries this benefit, I fear that anything not involving imaginary numbers will be perceived by certain sections of the House of Lords as being too accessible. Getting things through the second chamber is an exercise in the art of the possible don't y'know.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Personally I'd go for the Huntington-Hill method, if only in the hope that you'd get one of the entertaining quirks of malapportionment it provides for, whereby increasing the body by a seat causes one of the constituent areas to lose a seat.

[greatkingrat]

Or we could use the Norwegian method, where instead of using the population on its own to decide seat allocations, they use (population + 1.8 * area (in sq km) )

[erlend]

That should give our folk here miles of fun. And lots of extra seats for Scotland! You would in the British context probably do it initially by regional though (preserved-ish) counties might work. The figures are at the moment in Norway 693,000 allocated to area and 5,096,000. Thus 12% to upping representation to rural areas. If you simply used the 1.8 ponts/km square in the UK it would make limited difference between parts of the country though the cities might howl. But if you took the 12% rule I have sort of invented that is about 30 points/km square you would affect things.

63,181,775 plus (30 x 243,610) - 70,489,000 divided by 650 equals 108,440

England 56,912,000 gets 524.

London might not do too badly as the Norwegian system is based on the census so non citizens count. But I think for example Glasgow would lose another seat down to 6, Tyne and Wear would be down to 11 or maybe 10 while Highland might get much the same. I think it would actually leave Orkney and Shetland about right.


If asked I would have to say that it would be morally indefensible as people are represented not acres but it's just a bit of fun. And I was doing figures off the top of my head so no absolute precision.

[Pete Whitehead]

OK this sounds interesting....

[erlend]

Working out the formula is the first point. I'd suggest either using whatever percent of the formula the Norgies use for area or taking a typical round number like 10% or 15% for it. I think they use census figures. You could do that or use electorates as more British. Probably a new thread too.

Thought I might be aiming at an open goal here.

[Deleted]

I think labour would have something to say about your system.

I'm not labour though, and as such do not want to administer a biased system for political gain, so its a not starter for me. It is very interesting though, perhaps a "fantasy seats" project.

[erlend]

I was purely thinking fantasy. In Norway it may actually help the left, the right doing best in cities.

[Pete Whitehead]

I'm really keen to do something with this but I can't remotely get my head around the formulas involved

[Deleted]

Dec 3, 2013 21:10:44 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I'm really keen to do something with this but I can't remotely get my head around the formulas involved

If I have this right, all you do is assign a given excess electorate (e.g. 4 million) to the total area of the UK.

You then distribute this excess on the basis of land area.

So new ward electorate = old ward electorate + ([area of ward/area of UK] x 4,000,000]).

You then just make more or less equal sized seats using the new ward electorates.

[Deleted]

Example (using a constituentcy rather than a ward as I don't have ward electorates to hand)

If we went for 4,000,000 as the amount of ghost voters given to area:

Ross Skye and Lochaber has an area of 12,000 sq km.
UK has an areaof 243,610 sq km.

12,000/243610 x 4,000,000 = 197,036

Old electorate = Votes cast in 2010 divided by turnout = 34,838 over 0.672 = 51,842

New electorate = 197,036 + 51,842 = 248,878 - i.e. probably enough for 4 seats - obviously this is an extreme example.

[Pete Whitehead]

So actually you would need to assign a notional electorate based on area to every ward. I think that can be done from the ONS figures but could be time consuming

[greenchristian]

Dec 3, 2013 12:05:56 GMT tricky said:

Dec 1, 2013 23:55:35 GMT Richard Allen said:

May I ask what your position is on this subject?

Personally I favour Saint-Lague on the grounds that it is slightly more complex and thus more likely to confuse the innumerate.

While Saint-Lague obviously carries this benefit, I fear that anything not involving imaginary numbers will be perceived by certain sections of the House of Lords as being too accessible.

You think the House of Lords favours complex ideas?

[Richard Allen]

Dec 4, 2013 17:43:39 GMT greenchristian said:

Dec 3, 2013 12:05:56 GMT tricky said:

While Saint-Lague obviously carries this benefit, I fear that anything not involving imaginary numbers will be perceived by certain sections of the House of Lords as being too accessible.

You think the House of Lords favours complex ideas?

Certain members of the House of Lords favour ideas that most people find incomprehensible.

[erlend]

There are people like that in every field of life. And indeed on this forum.

[Deleted]

*draws up constituency map for average 10,000 electorate to show how parliament could work with over 900 MPs*

[Deleted]

Dec 5, 2013 20:49:53 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

*draws up constituency map for average 10,000 electorate to show how parliament could work with over 900 MPs*

Sounds like New Hampshire to me

[Pete Whitehead]

Dec 5, 2013 20:49:53 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

*draws up constituency map for average 10,000 electorate to show how parliament could work with over 900 MPs*

I suppose it isn't inaccurate to say that about 4,500 is 'over 900'..

[carlton43]

Dec 5, 2013 23:52:44 GMT ArmchairCritic said:

This should amuse you all......well, maybe not all. Some nice propaganda from the EU

"One year to go to the 2014 European elections

With one year to go until the 2014 European elections, this Eurobarometer survey of the European Parliament seeks to gauge Europeans’ opinion of the European project, the European Union and the possibilities offered by the European elections of 22-25 May 2014.
This survey follows on from our Eurobarometer survey of June 2012 (‘Two years to go to the 2014 European elections’, EP/EB77.4). The fieldwork was carried out between 7 and 23 June 2013.
The survey was conducted using face to face methods by TNS Opinion in the 28 EU Member States, with 27 624 respondents. The results are shown either for the EU28 (in the case of the new questions) or in the form of EU27 trends.
In addition, in the current electoral context, it seemed useful to provide a detailed sociodemographic analysis (attached to the synthesis). Each question is presented in terms of age, gender, occupation and euro/non-euro results. These results are presented for each Member State.
MAIN FINDINGS
An absolute majority of Europeans see freedom of movement and peace between the Member States as the most positive consequences of EU membership. The euro comes in third place, being mentioned by a quarter of respondents.
As regards the sense of identity, a majority of Europeans say that they feel rooted in a ‘national and European’ identity, while more than one third feel rooted in ‘national identity only’. There has been a slight increase in the proportion of Europeans who feel rooted in both 'national and European' identity since the survey that was conducted in June 2012.
The euro heads the list of key elements of the European identity, with very clear differences between the euro zone and the non-euro zone. This is followed very closely by freedom, and, far behind, history and culture.
The number of EU citizens who feel a sense of attachment to the EU has risen slightly. It is now almost a majority. It should be noted that national differences between Member States that are the most and the least attached to the EU reach 52 percentage points. Unsurprisingly, it remains lower than their sense of attachment to their home city/town, region or country, which are cited by close to nine out of ten respondents.
Moreover, a large majority feel that membership of the EU is a “good thing”. This has been true since 1973, when the question was included in the very first Eurobarometer.
Close to four in ten Europeans feel that their voice counts in the EU. In contrast, they are more numerous to believe that their voice counts in their country or that their country’s voice counts in the EU.
What do Europeans think about how democracy works?
An absolute majority of respondents say they are satisfied with how democracy works in their country, and more than four in ten say they are satisfied with how it works in the EU.
As happened last year, respondents were asked about a fundamental innovation established by the Lisbon Treaty, namely the new procedure for electing the President of the European Commission. Would Europeans be more inclined to vote today if the ‘major European political groupings present a candidate for the post of President of the European Commission, based on a joint programme’? An absolute majority say yes.
And would Europeans be in favour the President of the European Commission being elected directly in the near future? Seven out of ten say clearly and unambiguously that they would.
Why? Because they feel that this would give EU decisions added legitimacy and would strengthen democracy in the EU.
A limited interest in European affairs today, but that is likely to grow in the future.
An absolute majority of respondents said they had no interest in European politics, while a little more than four out of ten said they take an interest.
However, a clear majority believes that, by 2025, EU citizens will be more involved in European affairs than they are currently.
With regard to European integration:
In general, more than seven Europeans in ten think that what brings us together is more important than what separates us.
With regard to the pace of integration, the respondents were split almost equally between those who felt that the Member States must all advance at the same pace, and those who defended the idea moving forward at different speeds."

There are Lies, Damned Lies, Fantasy Fiction and Official Pronouncements by EU Surveys.

[carlton43]

Dec 6, 2013 0:23:02 GMT ArmchairCritic said:

Dec 6, 2013 0:20:07 GMT carlton43 said:

There are Lies, Damned Lies, Fantasy Fiction and Official Pronouncements by EU Surveys.

Its amazing how there are no people in the survey who don't think that there should be no further integration.....only those who disagree on the speed.

Oh....Is it?