2018 Review - Scotland

[afleitch]

Oct 20, 2016 12:48:21 GMT islington said:

"Has everyone seen the Commission's explanation of how they use postcodes to work out the electorates of proposed seats? Mind-boggling stuff, and makes it next to impossible for the mere mortals of the general public to propose accurate amendments. (At least the BCE has given everyone PD maps and data to play with.) Luckily most Scottish districts have PD information on their websites, except, frustratingly, for Edinburgh. If anyone has the PD data for Edinburgh (no matter how out of date) I'd be very glad to receive it."

Many thanks to Adrian for this, because it succinctly expresses the point I've been banging away at for months.

If we want the boundary-drawing process to be open and accountable, so that community organizations and the general public can understand it, develop their own view about it, and seek to influence it, then we need seats to consist of agglomerations of some kind of pre-existing unit of suitable size, with maps and electorate data published in a form that is readily available to the general public.

The local government ward, for all its shortcomings, offers a unit that meets this requirement. I accept that other units are conceptually possible, but I'll leave it to others to make that case. But there has to be something: otherwise the process will become the preserve of professional outfits with access to a far more granular level of data and mapping than could ever be made generally available, and the general public (including us on these boards) will effectively be shut out.

Which makes these seats challengable because you cannot confirm 100% they are all in quota.

[islington]

Oct 20, 2016 13:15:16 GMT afleitch said:

Oct 20, 2016 12:48:21 GMT islington said:

"Has everyone seen the Commission's explanation of how they use postcodes to work out the electorates of proposed seats? Mind-boggling stuff, and makes it next to impossible for the mere mortals of the general public to propose accurate amendments. (At least the BCE has given everyone PD maps and data to play with.) Luckily most Scottish districts have PD information on their websites, except, frustratingly, for Edinburgh. If anyone has the PD data for Edinburgh (no matter how out of date) I'd be very glad to receive it."

Many thanks to Adrian for this, because it succinctly expresses the point I've been banging away at for months.

If we want the boundary-drawing process to be open and accountable, so that community organizations and the general public can understand it, develop their own view about it, and seek to influence it, then we need seats to consist of agglomerations of some kind of pre-existing unit of suitable size, with maps and electorate data published in a form that is readily available to the general public.

The local government ward, for all its shortcomings, offers a unit that meets this requirement. I accept that other units are conceptually possible, but I'll leave it to others to make that case. But there has to be something: otherwise the process will become the preserve of professional outfits with access to a far more granular level of data and mapping than could ever be made generally available, and the general public (including us on these boards) will effectively be shut out.

Which makes these seats challengable because you cannot confirm 100% they are all in quota.

Well, I think what the BCS probably means (although it's hard to be sure) is that, guided by the postcode information on the electoral roll and the maps supplied by the Post Office, they were able to drill down below ward level, if necessary all the way down to the level of individual houses (this is no exaggeration - one of their proposed ward splits is defined as following 'the rear fences of properties'). So I imagine they can be confident about their cited electorate numbers.

So I'm not questioning their accuracy. My objection is that this kind of very granular information is not, and probably cannot be, made available to the general public; therefore it becomes difficult or impossible for anyone outside the charmed circle of the BCS to put together a properly informed critique of the proposal or formulate clear alternatives.

This applies particularly where (as in the case of the Argyll and Inverness seats discussed above) the BCS proposals are near the limits of the permitted range, so that there is little margin for error. 

[afleitch]

Okay. A little tweaking in Lanarkshire

Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Monklands East can remain as is as can Monklands West.

Rutherglen and Hamilton West can take in Bothwell and Uddingston Ward and loose the part of Hamilton South ward and part of Hamilton West ward which can go into Hamilton and Motherwell. Airdrie South and Shotts can gain Wishaw, with Motherwell North swapping into Hamilton and Motherwell. No idea what to do with the weird spur however

The weird Bearsden/Milngavie split defies logic as you can simply attach Milngavie ward to West Dumbartonshire.

[YL]

Oct 20, 2016 8:11:15 GMT Eastwood said:

]The electorate if you include all of Caol and Mallaig ward is 80,549 so you need to lose at least 2042 voters from Caol and Mallaig ward to make it compliant.

If you look at Highland Councils detailed ward maps with polling districts here:
www.highland.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/5072/detailed_map_of_ward_12_-_caol_and_mallaig.pdf

So in the NE of the ward the obvious districts (and numbers of electors) to include in Inverness and Skye are:
I12B Aberchalder 31
I12A Laggan 3
R12J Glengarry 312
R12I Achnacarry 93
R12K Spean Bridge 679
R12L Roy Bridge 442

But they only add up to 1,560 so you need at least another 500 electors taken out of the ward.

The remaining rural polling districts are:

R12D Mallaig 668
R12C Morar 239
R12B Arisaig 352
R12A Glenfinnan 105
R12F Small Isles 124
R12E Inverie 78
R12G Kinlocheil 94

And the Fort William districts are:
R12M Caol 2407
R12H Corpach 1308

So either you include both the Fort William districts in ABL and some or all of the rural districts in Inverness and Skye or (as the Commission propose) you put most of the rural districts in ABL but include 1 of the Fort William districts in Inverness and Skye.

Either way you end up with a non contiguous constituency. The commission proposal has Ardour and Mallaig accessible only by the Corran Ferry or driving through Inverness and Skye. The alternative would have Mallaig physically attached to Inverness and Skye but with road access only possible through Argyll, Bute and Lochaber.

Thanks (though I presume those are not the actual electorates for this review, but some other recent figures).

My instinct, given that you're going to end up with a seat connected by a ferry whatever, is to try not to split the Fort William urban area, so I'd suggest transferring Corpach to ABL (which I'd probably now call Argyll, Bute & Fort William) and transferring Mallaig, Morar, Arisaig and the Small Isles to Inverness & Skye (Inverie already being there). Locals may disagree...

[YL]

Oct 20, 2016 12:48:21 GMT islington said:

"Has everyone seen the Commission's explanation of how they use postcodes to work out the electorates of proposed seats? Mind-boggling stuff, and makes it next to impossible for the mere mortals of the general public to propose accurate amendments. (At least the BCE has given everyone PD maps and data to play with.) Luckily most Scottish districts have PD information on their websites, except, frustratingly, for Edinburgh. If anyone has the PD data for Edinburgh (no matter how out of date) I'd be very glad to receive it."

Many thanks to Adrian for this, because it succinctly expresses the point I've been banging away at for months.

If we want the boundary-drawing process to be open and accountable, so that community organizations and the general public can understand it, develop their own view about it, and seek to influence it, then we need seats to consist of agglomerations of some kind of pre-existing unit of suitable size, with maps and electorate data published in a form that is readily available to the general public.

The local government ward, for all its shortcomings, offers a unit that meets this requirement. I accept that other units are conceptually possible, but I'll leave it to others to make that case. But there has to be something: otherwise the process will become the preserve of professional outfits with access to a far more granular level of data and mapping than could ever be made generally available, and the general public (including us on these boards) will effectively be shut out.

You have a point, but I think the message is that the BCS should (a) publish polling district data and mapping, as the BCE have, and (b) they should try to avoid splitting polling districts unless it's really not possible to draw satisfactory constituencies otherwise. If they did those things then their approach oughtn't to be a barrier to public involvement.

Wards used to be a good choice of building blocks, and in much of England, Wales and Northern Ireland they still are. But in Scotland and other areas with large wards the introduction of strict electorate criteria means they are simply too big to use as sole building blocks. (And isn't it also a barrier to public involvement when you have to string lots of local government areas together when their ward sizes mean the only way of working without split wards is to have lots of weird boundary crossings?)

What do you think of the way local government boundary reviews work? They don't have any building blocks.

[islington]

Oct 20, 2016 18:29:31 GMT YL said:

Oct 20, 2016 12:48:21 GMT islington said:

"Has everyone seen the Commission's explanation of how they use postcodes to work out the electorates of proposed seats? Mind-boggling stuff, and makes it next to impossible for the mere mortals of the general public to propose accurate amendments. (At least the BCE has given everyone PD maps and data to play with.) Luckily most Scottish districts have PD information on their websites, except, frustratingly, for Edinburgh. If anyone has the PD data for Edinburgh (no matter how out of date) I'd be very glad to receive it."

Many thanks to Adrian for this, because it succinctly expresses the point I've been banging away at for months.

If we want the boundary-drawing process to be open and accountable, so that community organizations and the general public can understand it, develop their own view about it, and seek to influence it, then we need seats to consist of agglomerations of some kind of pre-existing unit of suitable size, with maps and electorate data published in a form that is readily available to the general public.

The local government ward, for all its shortcomings, offers a unit that meets this requirement. I accept that other units are conceptually possible, but I'll leave it to others to make that case. But there has to be something: otherwise the process will become the preserve of professional outfits with access to a far more granular level of data and mapping than could ever be made generally available, and the general public (including us on these boards) will effectively be shut out.

You have a point, but I think the message is that the BCS should (a) publish polling district data and mapping, as the BCE have, and (b) they should try to avoid splitting polling districts unless it's really not possible to draw satisfactory constituencies otherwise. If they did those things then their approach oughtn't to be a barrier to public involvement.

Wards used to be a good choice of building blocks, and in much of England, Wales and Northern Ireland they still are. But in Scotland and other areas with large wards the introduction of strict electorate criteria means they are simply too big to use as sole building blocks. (And isn't it also a barrier to public involvement when you have to string lots of local government areas together when their ward sizes mean the only way of working without split wards is to have lots of weird boundary crossings?)

What do you think of the way local government boundary reviews work? They don't have any building blocks.

YL / Adrian

You might be surprised to learn that, in principle, I haven't really got a problem with this. But I do have a few provisos:

• the use of PDs should be specifically recognized in the legislation
• PD maps and electorates should be made available at the very start of the process on the same basis as wards are
• there should be a clear requirement, probably in the legislation, that wards are the primary unit and PDs are there as a back-up only if they allow a solution that is a marked improvement on the best that can be achieved using wards: wards, in other words, should be relatively indivisible, and PDs should be absolutely indivisible (none of this 'along the rear fences of properties' nonsense that the BCS has come up with)
• someone (the LGBCE or equivalent body) should have some kind of oversight of the PD-drawing process just to make sure it's being properly exercised and is not being manipulated to ease (or hamper) some Parliamentary solution that the LA is anxious to encourage (or avoid) for its own reasons (political partisanship, &c)

I'd be quite happy with some rules along these lines. But my point is that these are hypothetical rules that might be adopted: they aren't the rules that apply to the current review.

Just to pick up a couple of other points -

• Over the months we've been engaged in this exercise, a few contributors have made comments to the effect that LA boundaries should be given more respect than ward boundaries; sometimes offered in contrast to a supposed view that ward boundaries are more important. I respectfully disagree with both propositions: I think that, for the purposes of this exercise, ward and LA boundaries are equally important - the legislations does not offer any basis for giving priority to one over the other. 
• It's true that reviews of ward boundaries don't usually have any building blocks (maybe, parishes in sparsely populated areas); but all that means is that any boundary-drawing system has to start somewhere. And the LA, which will take the lead in the process, ought to know its area well enough to have some idea where the lines ought to go. 

[Eastwood]

Oct 20, 2016 19:46:32 GMT islington said:

Oct 20, 2016 18:29:31 GMT YL said:

You have a point, but I think the message is that the BCS should (a) publish polling district data and mapping, as the BCE have, and (b) they should try to avoid splitting polling districts unless it's really not possible to draw satisfactory constituencies otherwise. If they did those things then their approach oughtn't to be a barrier to public involvement.

Wards used to be a good choice of building blocks, and in much of England, Wales and Northern Ireland they still are. But in Scotland and other areas with large wards the introduction of strict electorate criteria means they are simply too big to use as sole building blocks. (And isn't it also a barrier to public involvement when you have to string lots of local government areas together when their ward sizes mean the only way of working without split wards is to have lots of weird boundary crossings?)

What do you think of the way local government boundary reviews work? They don't have any building blocks.

YL / Adrian

You might be surprised to learn that, in principle, I haven't really got a problem with this. But I do have a few provisos:

• the use of PDs should be specifically recognized in the legislation
• PD maps and electorates should be made available at the very start of the process on the same basis as wards are
• there should be a clear requirement, probably in the legislation, that wards are the primary unit and PDs are there as a back-up only if they allow a solution that is a marked improvement on the best that can be achieved using wards: wards, in other words, should be relatively indivisible, and PDs should be absolutely indivisible (none of this 'along the rear fences of properties' nonsense that the BCS has come up with)
• someone (the LGBCE or equivalent body) should have some kind of oversight of the PD-drawing process just to make sure it's being properly exercised and is not being manipulated to ease (or hamper) some Parliamentary solution that the LA is anxious to encourage (or avoid) for its own reasons (political partisanship, &c)

I'd be quite happy with some rules along these lines. But my point is that these are hypothetical rules that might be adopted: they aren't the rules that apply to the current review.

Just to pick up a couple of other points -

• Over the months we've been engaged in this exercise, a few contributors have made comments to the effect that LA boundaries should be given more respect than ward boundaries; sometimes offered in contrast to a supposed view that ward boundaries are more important. I respectfully disagree with both propositions: I think that, for the purposes of this exercise, ward and LA boundaries are equally important - the legislations does not offer any basis for giving priority to one over the other. 
• It's true that reviews of ward boundaries don't usually have any building blocks (maybe, parishes in sparsely populated areas); but all that means is that any boundary-drawing system has to start somewhere. And the LA, which will take the lead in the process, ought to know its area well enough to have some idea where the lines ought to go. 

With MMWs it is clear that they are too big to be consistently useful building blocks for Constituencies in Scotland so I'm relaxed about the Commission's approach to using different building blocks where required.

There is some inconsistency with use of roads, natural features, polling districts and community council boundaries in different places.

My preference would be to legislatively establish smaller units that could then be used as building blocks to create LG Wards, Scottish and UK Constituencies.

The starting point for these should probably be something like census output areas which could then be grouped into natural communities.

Ideally this would be a publically engaged process itself, I'm aware of some work having been done along these lines in Edinburgh to establish some of the Community Planning areas, involving interviewing local people from different streets and asking which area they consider themselves to be in. It's not a simple process though!

You'd also need some flexibility to depart from COAs as some COAs are flawed either by subsequent development or by the rural / urban density split especially as that is calculated purely on residential density so industrial areas can be combined with farmland to make some odd COAs.

But I think it would be worth having reliable building blocks and they would also be useful for other administrative, statistical and service delivery purposes.

Then everyone can know what the building blocks are in advance. I believe Scottish Parliamentary and Local Government boundaries are now devolved so Holyrood could lead on it. We've just had a review so now is the perfect time to establish new base units that can be used for future reviews.

I'd propose that Local Authorities would lead on the process and present proposals to LGBCS and Scottish Ministers for approval.

[Adrian]

I did come up with the following a few years ago:

The 5% Law versus the No Ward-splitting Rule

constituency electorate: minimum 72,810, maximum 80,473 ['Twas at the time]
Once ward size reaches 8,000 redistricting is effectively impossible:
9×8,000=72,000, 10×8,000=80,000
8×9,000=72,000, 9×9,000=81,000
7×10,000=70,000, 8x10,000=80,000
etc.

Suggestion: allow ward-splitting only in districts where it is mathematically necessary, i.e. with an average ward size of a certain amount. I calculated this amount as 102.5% of the average constituency size, divided by 10, which at this review is 7,856, and I modestly named this the Bailey Number.😀 Most, if not all, metro boroughs would qualify (Rochdale’s average is 7,867, for example), giving the Commission the necessary flexibility in those places.

We can also put a cap on how many splits are allowed in a particular review area, and I suggest this could be: number of seats divided by two, rounded down. In Rochdale’s case this would be 1, in Leeds’s 3, in Birmingham’s 4, in Cheshire & Wirral 5.

---

(I've decided since that I don't believe there should be such fixed rules - the process should be flexible.)

[YL]

Anyway, some more thoughts on the proposals.

The Highlands and the north-east look OK to me, barring the details around Fort William. I'm pleased they didn't feel the need to split Inverness.

Kinross-shire & Cowdenbeath is definitely an odd one: the Forth coast around Burntisland in the same seat as part of Loch Earn? The name is odd too; isn't really quite a lot of it in Perthshire? OTOH the other Fife seats look fine, but I wonder about combining Clackmannanshire with west Fife (and south Perthshire with Stirling) and putting Burntisland in with Dunfermline.

How odd a pairing is Edinburgh Pentland with Livingston? The Edinburgh city boundary has to be breached somewhere, but is that the best way of doing it?

Glasgow itself looks OK to me, but much of the surrounding area looks a bit of a mess, with several towns split, and Hamilton & Motherwell definitely fails the "it shouldn't look like some strange animal" test.

A few cumbersome names: "Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Monklands East" and "West Dunbartonshire & Bearsden North" are probably the worst.

[Adrian]

It took me a while to work out what had happened to Eastwood. What are the people there making of being in Cunninghame East?

[islington]

Hamilton & Motherwell also fails the "Should contain most of Motherwell" test - more than half the town is in the Airdrie South seat.

As a minimum, swapping Motherwell W ward into the seat, and Wishaw the other way, would get more of Motherwell into the seat and would also (by providing more headroom against the upper limit) allow the seat to contain the whole of Hamilton S ward.

(The irony is that if you combine the three wards of Motherwell proper with the three wards of Hamilton, you actually get a perfectly workable seat, within range, that contains the whole of both towns. But this would require a wholesale reconstruction of the surrounding area, in contrast to the 'quick fix' I've outlined above.)

As a general observation, a scheme with so many ward splits ought really to have far fewer town splits, if any at all. Motherwell is the stand-out but Airdrie and Stirling are also pretty bad and are eminently avoidable. BCS has created a problem for itself by insisting on treating Stirling, Falkirk and Clacks LAs as a group for three seats. The trouble with this is that the combination isn't really big enough, so the options are limited by the fact that all three seats have to be near the lower limit. If they threw in Kilsyth too (formerly part of Stirlingshire), the combination would be a much better size for three seats, thus giving more scope to avoid the Stirling split; moreover, the Airdrie/Cumbernauld seat could then expand south to include the whole of Airdrie (yes, I know the latter move would involve a ward split - but if you're going to split wards, at least do it in a way that keeps towns together). 

Incidentally, is Clydesdale South ward unique in being divided between three seats? (And even more incidentally, am I alone in thinking the compass-point labels of the Clydesdale wards appear to have been assigned at random?)

[Eastwood]

Oct 21, 2016 7:39:23 GMT Adrian said:

It took me a while to work out what had happened to Eastwood. What are the people there making of being in Cunninghame East?

As a resident of the area I have no huge objections to the seat itself. 

Ideally you would have all of East Renfrewshire in one seat. The numbers in neighbouring areas do make this difficult though. Once you decide to split the one chosen is probably the best available. Barrhead and Neilston have reasonable links to Paisley and the split follows the historical division between Eastwood and Renfrew districts pre 1995.

Stewarton, Kilmaurs and Fenwick have good connections to the Mearns and similarities in terms of becoming increasingly Glasgow commuter belt dormitory towns.

Galston, Newmilns and Darvel have an entirely different character and definitely look to Kilmarnock as their regional centre. They feel a bit out on a limb in this seat and might be somewhat neglected by an MP (especially if a Conservative were elected). On the other hand both Labour and SNP would see the upper Irvine valley as being an important battleground and bulwark against the Tory voters of Mearns. To resolve it though would need a completely different design across Ayrshire and other potentially more unpopular choices. 

I think the main objection will be the name. The East Renfrewshire portion of the constituency is around 50,000 electors so well over 50% of the constituency but none of the name. And while of course in the 19th century Cunninghame referred to the entire Irvine Valley, the 20th century usage of Cunninghame for the district in Strathclyde referred only to the area that is in the proposed Cunninghame West seat. So I'd suggest Cunninghame West should be renamed "Cunninghame and Arran" while Cunninghame East should be renamed "Eastwood and Loudoun". 

Indeed a cynic might suggest the pitchforky name is thrown in to provide a focus of discontent and allow a victory in achieving a more sensible name while leaving the proposal intact. 

[Eastwood]

Oct 21, 2016 6:47:55 GMT YL said:

Anyway, some more thoughts on the proposals.

Kinross-shire & Cowdenbeath is definitely an odd one: the Forth coast around Burntisland in the same seat as part of Loch Earn? The name is odd too; isn't really quite a lot of it in Perthshire? OTOH the other Fife seats look fine, but I wonder about combining Clackmannanshire with west Fife (and south Perthshire with Stirling) and putting Burntisland in with Dunfermline.

Kinrosshire and Cowdenbeath is a really odd one. The best alternative is probably a South Perthshire and North East Fife seat that looks a real Tory/Lib Dem gerrymander but would probably actually work quite well as a seat. You'd then have a Glenrothes and Cowdenbeath seat and a Kirkcaldy and Levenmouth seat (that includes Kinghorn and Burntisland). I actually quite like that plan but the South Perthshire and North East Fife seat might not be popular with the SNP. Any linkage of West Fife with Clacks makes keeping Dunfermline in a single seat almost impossible. The Dunfermline seat is probably the best thing about the current Commission proposals and I wouldn't want to mess with that. 

[Eastwood]

Oct 21, 2016 6:47:55 GMT YL said:

Anyway, some more thoughts on the proposals.

How odd a pairing is Edinburgh Pentland with Livingston? The Edinburgh city boundary has to be breached somewhere, but is that the best way of doing it?

I think Livingston and Edinburgh Pentland is a reasonable seat. I'd rename it that way round though as 2/3rds of the electors are in West Lothian and Livingston is the 7th largest settlement in Scotland (bigger than the cities of Perth, Stirling or Inverness) and deserves first billing in a seat that it forms the majority of.



There are demographic similarities and links along the A70 and A71 to Currie and Balerno. For example children from Kirknewton (in West Lothian) attend secondary school across the border in Balerno and the Pentland Hills regional park is a jointly run body by the 3 councils.

Mid and East Calder, the southern part of Livingston and Polbeth were all in Midlothian before 1975 and transport links are good. 

The alternative of linking South Queensferry with northern West Lothian is not bad on historical and transport link grounds but once you include the whole of Almond ward it begins to look odd. What natural affinity is there between Armadale and Davidson's Mains? Very little and certainly less than there is between East Calder and Balerno. 

[jollyroger93]

Having had a good look at the proposals i think there not bad at all. The one seat am not that merry about is Kinross-shire and Cowdenbeath. It's a monstrosity.

But leaving that aside there are clearly a number of seats for Labour the conservatives and the lib dems to target.

Labour
Edinburgh East
East lothian
Paisley
Renfrewshire west

Conservative
all the border seats plus Cunninghame East and a seat in the North East. Potential Edinburgh south west and central as well.

Lib Dems
Edinburgh West, North East Fife and Highland North.

[jollyroger93]

Oct 21, 2016 15:58:15 GMT ntyuk1707 said:

Oct 21, 2016 15:51:11 GMT jollyroger93 said:

Having had a good look at the proposals i think there not bad at all. The one seat am not that merry about is Kinross-shire and Cowdenbeath. It's a monstrosity.

But leaving that aside there are clearly a number of seats for Labour the conservatives and the lib dems to target.

Labour
Edinburgh East
East lothian
Paisley
Renfrewshire west

Conservative
all the border seats plus Cunninghame East and a seat in the North East. Potential Edinburgh south west and central as well.

Lib Dems
Edinburgh West, North East Fife and Highland North.

Seems like you've just based all of that on electoral calculus whose calculations are completely unreliable, based on the 2012 local council elections!!!

Labour has no chance in Paisley and Edinburgh East. Edinburgh South West and Central is significantly better for them.

As for the Conservatives: honestly I can't see any viable targets for them outside of the three borders constituencies plus Ayr & Carrick. Edinburgh South West and Central would be their next best target but I think it's too far out of reach for them... Cunninghame East does take in some decent Conservative areas (in Eastwood) however they were quite far behind here in 2015 and in 2016, with Loudoun making things difficult for the party. Gordon and Deeside miles out of reach for the Conservatives as it takes in large swathes of the Aberdeenshire East constituency from the Scottish Parliament: they might've been more competitive here had the constituency included the Banchory ward.

Only for Labours seats haha if not to target but to through some resources to try and get a decent share of the vote. 

[afleitch]

There are a lot of easy fixes to the Fife problem. You don't even have to split wards

Dunfermline and Kinross - Dunfermline N,C,S, Lochs, W Fife, Kinrossshire - 74358
Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath - Kirkcaldy N,C,E,W, Inverkeithing, Cowdenbeath, Rosyth - 77027
Glenrothes - Glenrothes N,W,C, Buckhaven, Leven, Lochgelly - 77787
North East Fife and South Perthshire - East Neuk, St Andrews, Tay Bridge, Cupar, Howe of Fife, Almond and Earn, Strathallan, Strathearn - 75957

[piperdave]

Oct 19, 2016 23:30:37 GMT ntyuk1707 said:

So Edinburgh West is almost gerrymandered for the Liberal Democrats. If these boundaries stick I think that it's very possible that Edinburgh will have 2 unionist MP's in 2020 (with tactical voting in mind there's a very decent chance that the proposed Edinburgh South constituency would go Labour in 2020 if it were left untouched).

I know you have used 'almost' as a qualifier, but could you please be careful when describing a constituency as gerrymandered? The word means a manipulation to unfairly benefit one party. If anyone is going to level that accusation at the Boundary Commission, it should be accompanied by evidence or a clear rationale for that belief.

[afleitch]

It's also unfortunate that the Ayrshire/Renfrewshire boundary is breached 3 times. You can create seats that only breach it once. You can have Kilmarnock and Loudoun as is (adjusted at the ward boundary), lump the rest of East Ayrshire in with South Ayrshire less Troon, Prestwick and Kyle putting those wards in with Irvine and Saltcoats to create Ayrshire Central and have the rest of North Ayrshire link up with Inverclyde West and South West. Then you can create 3 seats out of what's left

[afleitch]

For Ayrshire it's basically the arrangement they have now, except taking in a bit of Inverclyde and uniting Ayr. It's the least dispruptive plan

And 'Cunninghame East' isn't a thing. It's like saying there's a West Kilbride, an East Kilbride and this is in the middle so let's call it Mid Kilbride...

East Renfrewshire can be extended by taking a small bit of the Paisley environs, which are mostly new built areas. A chunk of Paisley South West will do it (Foxbar) or South (Glenbar) which is connected to Barrhead by a main road which is literally a 3 minute drive away (which I know). You can still have a Paisley seat comprising all the Paisley wards AND the two Renfrew wards (so no split) and Erskine and Linwood, with a Greenock and West Renfrewshire seat making up the rest.

EDIT. Or even better, you can take East Renfrewshire into Howwood and even Lochwinnoch, which allows Paisley plus Renfrew to be left completely intact with the addition of most of Erskine.