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Post by Antiochian on Apr 8, 2019 7:39:09 GMT
If I was a Tory leadership contender I would be promising the troops that the review would go the way of all things and the seat count would not be changed. Thus sending the Boundary Commission back to the drawing board.
There must be a goodly chunk of MPs that care more about this issue than they do about Brexit.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Apr 8, 2019 9:25:07 GMT
There almost seems to be an unwritten rule that at every review, the commission will propose lengthier names which are much worse than existing ones. You'll get no complaints from me. I don't object to long names as much as some on here; I'd rather have a long name than a vague, misleading or obscure one. However, not only is "Argyll, Bute & South West Highland" clunky, the "South West Highland" bit, IMO, does a poor job at describing the area actually involved. It turns out that it's the town of Fort William and the immediately surrounding area, so frankly "Argyll, Bute & Fort William" would do a better job and is also a little less clunky. |
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742 
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Post by Adrian on May 10, 2019 12:51:17 GMT
I hadn't seen this handy map of the proposed constituencies before: www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/openseatmap.html?seats=2018Since this map seems dead in the water, I wonder if consideration is being given to changing the rules/procedures to try to ensure that proposals are enacted in future? It is bizarre that independent boundary commissions can be ignored by parliament, whatever the motivations of the latter might be. A suggestion: a new law that states that all seats that are 15% above or below the quota (i.e. currently based on 650 seats) are illegal and must be resolved before an election in them can take place. Edit: having an initial look at this, the current quota in England is 71191 (approx), so the acceptable range would be 61193 to 82790 and there are 65 seats outside the range, excluding the Isle of Wight. It might be an interesting exercise to find the least disruptive way of getting the seats within quota. Data: www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/datasets/electoralstatisticsforuk/2018/elec5dt1electoralstatisticsuk2018.xlsToo big: Bridgwater and West Somerset Horsham Aylesbury Bristol West Mid Sussex South Cambridgeshire North East Cambridgeshire Huntingdon Taunton Deane South Norfolk South East Cambridgeshire Mid Bedfordshire East Devon Poplar and Limehouse Warrington South Croydon North Bermondsey and Old Southwark Folkestone and Hythe Manchester Central Wantage Bury St Edmunds Banbury North East Bedfordshire Ashford Milton Keynes North South Northamptonshire West Ham Sleaford and North Hykeham North West Cambridgeshire Milton Keynes South Too small: Newcastle upon Tyne Central Wirral West Newcastle upon Tyne East Blackpool South Preston Stoke-on-Trent Central Wirral South Wolverhampton South West Berwick-upon-Tweed Kensington Northampton North Middlesbrough Leeds North West Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle Cities of London and Westminster Nottingham East Hexham Wolverhampton North East Aldridge-Brownhills Putney Warley Workington Bath Liverpool, Wavertree Chelsea and Fulham Liverpool, Walton West Bromwich East Great Grimsby Dudley South Wolverhampton South East Dudley North Copeland Easington Wansbeck Northampton South |
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
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Post by Adrian on May 10, 2019 14:26:54 GMT
Reunited with my old friend, Boundary Assistant, I had a go at the Black Country. Not too hard. Frees up a seat to go where one's needed down south somewhere, eg. the zone from Buckingham to Cambridge. I've used 10% bounds for new seats, ie. 64792-79190 based on the latest ONS data. Based on the review data (used by Boundary Assistant) Warley is a bit above that, but it could well be lower now.
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goose
Conservative & Unionist
Posts: 610
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Post by goose on May 10, 2019 15:14:16 GMT
I hadn't seen this handy map of the proposed constituencies before: www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/openseatmap.html?seats=2018Since this map seems dead in the water, I wonder if consideration is being given to changing the rules/procedures to try to ensure that proposals are enacted in future? It is bizarre that independent boundary commissions can be ignored by parliament, whatever the motivations of the latter might be. A suggestion: a new law that states that all seats that are 15% above or below the quota (i.e. currently based on 650 seats) are illegal and must be resolved before an election in them can take place. Edit: having an initial look at this, the current quota in England is 71191 (approx), so the acceptable range would be 61193 to 82790 and there are 65 seats outside the range, excluding the Isle of Wight. It might be an interesting exercise to find the least disruptive way of getting the seats within quota. Data: www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/datasets/electoralstatisticsforuk/2018/elec5dt1electoralstatisticsuk2018.xlsToo big: Bridgwater and West Somerset Horsham Aylesbury Bristol West Mid Sussex South Cambridgeshire North East Cambridgeshire Huntingdon Taunton Deane South Norfolk South East Cambridgeshire Mid Bedfordshire East Devon Poplar and Limehouse Warrington South Croydon North Bermondsey and Old Southwark Folkestone and Hythe Manchester Central Wantage Bury St Edmunds Banbury North East Bedfordshire Ashford Milton Keynes North South Northamptonshire West Ham Sleaford and North Hykeham North West Cambridgeshire Milton Keynes South Too small: Newcastle upon Tyne Central Wirral West Newcastle upon Tyne East Blackpool South Preston Stoke-on-Trent Central Wirral South Wolverhampton South West Berwick-upon-Tweed Kensington Northampton North Middlesbrough Leeds North West Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle Cities of London and Westminster Nottingham East Hexham Wolverhampton North East Aldridge-Brownhills Putney Warley Workington Bath Liverpool, Wavertree Chelsea and Fulham Liverpool, Walton West Bromwich East Great Grimsby Dudley South Wolverhampton South East Dudley North Copeland Easington Wansbeck Northampton South What would that look like with a UK wide national quota? |
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
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Post by Adrian on May 10, 2019 22:35:46 GMT
I don't really want to get into a UK-wide quota since that rather goes against the spirit of the exercise, which is to tweak what currently exists, rather than to overhaul it.
I'm going to start a thread for this little project.
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jamie
Top Poster
Posts: 7,069
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Post by jamie on May 29, 2019 9:08:47 GMT
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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 Jun 6, 2019 15:28:28 GMT
Someone on Twitter has posted "Boundary Review 2018 : RIP" next to a message from the Conservatives asking for candidates for the next election in a number of Lab / Con marginals (making them believe that the review is now dead and buried). Do members agree with this assessment?
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jun 6, 2019 15:31:52 GMT
Not entirely, but I think a fair construction on it is that Conservative Party officials think it very likely that the next general election will take place on the current boundaries. It does not preclude the boundary changes happening after the next election.
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Post by greenhert on Jun 6, 2019 15:36:23 GMT
Not entirely, but I think a fair construction on it is that Conservative Party officials think it very likely that the next general election will take place on the current boundaries. It does not preclude the boundary changes happening after the next election. Technically, no, but the boundaries and electorate data used for the 2018 review are now over three years out of date; given the numbers of voters who registered for the EU referendum this is significant. |
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mondialito
Labour
Everything is horribly, brutally possible.
Posts: 4,961
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Post by mondialito on Jun 6, 2019 20:17:03 GMT
The ironic thing is that the means of drawing the boundaries hadn't been messed around with, we would have updated boundaries by now.
Dave the Arsonist strikes again.
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
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Post by Adrian on Jun 6, 2019 22:00:04 GMT
Because the system currently seems to be favouring the Tories, the impetus to change the seats has gone. Not to mention that for the foreseeable future, Brexit is the only game in town.
Hopefully before thought is given to starting a new review, a group of MPs will lean on the govt to scrap most of the 2011 changes.
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Post by John Chanin on Jun 7, 2019 6:12:24 GMT
A sensible approach would be to convene a joint working group which would agree the rules in advance. Part of the required legislation could then allow for the boundaries to automatically come into operation once the process is complete. The parliamentary Select Committee on reviewing the matter, had no difficulty in coming up with a consensus.
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Post by La Fontaine on Jun 7, 2019 9:35:55 GMT
I think the only change needed is to leave the total at 650. The five percent actually worked out OK. The real reason Labour opposed it was because they think they are better at exploiting flexibility during the consultation process. (Of course, I also think the whole FPTP system is corrupt and self-serving.)
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 39,067
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Post by The Bishop on Jun 7, 2019 10:28:10 GMT
Five percent is *generally* OK, but there were some obvious and glaring exceptions. So a little flexibility to deal with those is not wrong IMO.
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mondialito
Labour
Everything is horribly, brutally possible.
Posts: 4,961
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Post by mondialito on Jun 7, 2019 15:53:01 GMT
Ground rules we can all agree on:
650 seats.
Redraw and redistribute between the nations and regions every 10 years.
5-10% deviation limit.
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Post by finsobruce on Jun 7, 2019 16:10:10 GMT
Ground rules we can all agree on: 650 seats. Redraw and redistribute between the nations and regions every 10 years. 5-10% deviation limit. Sold! |
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ricmk
Lib Dem
Posts: 2,633
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Post by ricmk on Jun 7, 2019 16:15:17 GMT
Ground rules we can all agree on: 650 seats. Redraw and redistribute between the nations and regions every 10 years. 5-10% deviation limit. Can we? I think 650 is uncontroversial, but doing this every 10 years means we'd spend half our lives reviewing boundaries. And is a strict deviation limit really agreed all round, even with 10%? You'd still get orphan wards, the need for ward splits and places where you can't use common sense. I'd rather have an 'exceptional circumstances' rule for up to 15% where it would prevent a ward split, orphan ward, or specific reason of geography.
Perhaps we should have realised, that as we haven't managed a single boundary update in 9 years of quite serious effort, that we wouldn't manage Brexit in 3. Quite an indictment of our political processes - but some shared lessons about the need to get people to sign up to the principles well in advance, build a broad coalition of support, be careful to keep everyone on board where changes are needed, and keep the focus on the original vision.
Instead in both cases we've had the Tories saying they know best (indeed you're an enemy of democracy in both cases if you don't agree) and then getting very grumpy when no-one else will back them when it gets tough, and finding they've lost the support on their own benches leading to paralysis.
Maybe we should be asking the Tory leadership candidates how they will get a boundary review through, before they tackle the much tougher Brexit process?
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,841
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jun 7, 2019 16:24:13 GMT
Ground rules we can all agree on: 650 seats. Redraw and redistribute between the nations and regions every 10 years. 5-10% deviation limit. Not ideal, but I think would address the majority of problems with the current Return of Son Of Zombie Part Two review. I think I'd express it as: 5% target, 10% requirement. Timetable? Unsure. Sheffield was done in (the run up to) 1983, 1997, 2010. 15 years, or every three Parliaments might be a better stab to address concerns of continuous reviewing. I think I'd also require that the whole (sub-)country is not done at the same time, so eg: Parliament 1: Regions 1-3; Parliament 2: Regions 4-6; Parliament 3: Regions 7-9; Parliament 4: go back to Regions 1-3. If the number of seats is to change, it must be as a seperate one-off specific review using the existing rules at that point. It must not be combined with any other adjustments to the rules. |
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Jun 7, 2019 17:09:57 GMT
650 seats is fine, though I'm not that strongly opposed to a small reduction. The over-representation of Wales should end.
I would be happy with 5% target, 10% limit. 10% would be enough to allow most (ceremonial) counties in England and Wales to be treated as units, which I think would have two advantages: first a lot of the cross county constituencies proposed were controversial and not very satisfactory, and secondly it would make review areas a lot more manageable for the consultation. Proposals in Sheffield shouldn't have knock-on effects in Great Ayton, but in the Initial Proposals this time round they did.
I'm not that worried about reviews being too frequent. As long as the rules don't keep changing there would be likely to be a lot of areas where no changes were necessary, especially if things are being done at a county level.
I find the current system's use of "off season" December electorates indefensible in the light of the registration surges that have been observed before major elections and referendums under the current system. I'm not particularly sympathetic to using population instead of electorate, but if electorates are going to be used they need to be reliable. Under the current registration system, I think the best we're going to get is to use the electorates on the most recent General Election day.
The quality of the Initial Proposals in both the zombie reviews has been pretty poor or worse in many areas. The consultation process generally manages to improve on them, but they set the tone and with many representations being based on them undesirable features can survive to the final proposals. So I think this process should be looked at; personally I favour the Commissions starting off by publishing electorates at a suitable level of detail (polling districts, probably) and inviting submissions for each review area, which they could then use to inform their own ideas.
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