Foggy
Non-Aligned
Yn Ennill Yma
Posts: 6,144 
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Post by Foggy on Sept 16, 2016 20:44:10 GMT
Foggy Tring would be an absurd name to use for SW Herts - it's right at the seats Northern periphery and is far from being the seats largest town. It isn't even the largest town in the Dacorum part of the seat )that would be Berkhamsted which being more centrally positioned within the seat would be a better name, but still bad). By far the biggest settlement is Rickmansworth, escpecially if you include in that Croxley Green, Moor Park and arguably Chorlewood too (certainly much of Chorleywood East ward is physically part of Rickmansworth). But that still would be a poor name because it is in a corner of the seat and would have no resonance further North (internal connections between the two parts of the seat are not good as the A41 which runs thtough/past Tring and Berko proceed to the other side of Watford from the Rickmansworth 'conurbation'. ditto the railway line. This is really one of those seats which is a collection of small towns where the compass point type of name is most appropriate. In this case though it should obviously West rather than South West I think Berko is a good name. It is very central, well known and a prominent spot on the map and railway. It might get special attention from the Speaker and afford the member more access to being called. Ha, very droll. Pete argues his case well. Tring just sounds snappier than the two longer place names, and sticks in my mind due to Graham Poll's alias from his refereeing days. I'm happy with it being called W Herts as long as there's an E Herts seat as well. Since there is a local authority by that name, in theory it shouldn't be too much trouble, but the actual boundaries and numbers in the county aren't helpful. Ugh, more ambiguity. It's bad enough that there's a Rother Valley in S Yorks rather than E Sussex! |
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Post by longmonty on Sept 16, 2016 20:58:24 GMT
It`s very easy to get the Basildon wards in Basildon and Billericay down from two to one, but how do you get it to 0? It's the only part of the Essex map that seems strange and undesirable to my inexpert eyes. Adrian's method works if you're ignoring the draft recommendations, but it's also quite possible to do it whilst largely leaving the north of the county unchanged. The East Thurrock seat swings round to the west of Basildon and takes in Billericay; the Castle Point seat extends east into West Leigh instead of West into Pitsea; the Southend West shifts east; Rochford & Southend East takes Hockley and Hawkwell; and Rayleigh keeps Wickford. Mind you, I've not yet found a way of keeping the Billericay seat down to three LAs or less. a couple of options: 
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Post by greenhert on Sept 16, 2016 21:14:43 GMT
There is a way if you combine Billericay with Brentwood a la the Brentwood constituency of 1955-74.
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
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Post by Adrian on Sept 16, 2016 21:20:39 GMT
Okay. Don't think anyone has the stomach for Brentwood & East Thurrock though. I don't like the combination, but I can't see any legs in the Thurrock-Billericay suggestion. And the people in West Leigh won't accept being an orphan ward in Castle Point either. I think that in the end Basildon will stay very split. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 17, 2016 13:31:22 GMT
If you treat Hertfordshire separately, you have to shift more Cambridgeshire wards into a Norfolk constituency. So that's exactly what I meant. Will you be making any submission along these lines? While on the whole the Hertfordshire proposals aren't awful, the addition of some Cambridgeshire wards is irritating and unnecessary and can be fixed with only a few minor changes to the remaining Hertfordshire seats which generally improve them anyway (eg Welwyn Hatfield becoming coterminous with the district, Broxbourne containing three East Herts wards rather than two orphans from different boroughs) The obvious solution (as I think we all agreed before) is to move the Wisbech area into what will effectively be the successor to the current SW Norfolk and again relatively minor changes are needed to the remaining seats in Norfolk. Since the number of constituencies in Herts and in Cambs/Norfolk remain the same, it's fairly simple to fiddle with the existing seats to get them all in quota. I have come up with what I think is a decent plan which minimises change from the current seats and doesn't mess too much with the Commissions proposals (I discovered last time that tinkering with their plans rather than offering up something copletely different was far more likely to be successful). I will post them in a while. The Herts plan I think is no different to what I originally proposed. In Cambs/Norfolk there is a bit more scope for different plans but it might be helpful if broadly we are singing from the same hymn sheet OK so I think the plan for Herts has been well enough rehearsed. It really only swaps a few wards around and of course loses the unnecessary additions from Cambridgeshire. I won't reiterate here why I think this is superior to the Commission's plan, but I will tell them...  Now to the Cambs-Norfolk arrangements it is as I say more or less as simple as trimming a few wards here and there on the existing pattern with the only area being drastically affected being that covered by the current NE Cambs/SW Norfolk/Mid Norfolk seats with some significant knock-on changes to the South Cambridgeshire seats First a map of the existing setup for comparison  And my plans  So from the top, Peterboroughis just as the Commissions plan (gaining Fletton) NW Cambsis the same bar one ward. Huntingdon loses St Ives and gains Ellington while retaining Gransden South Cambs gains St Ives, Earith and Willingham, retains the 3 wards which were going to NE Herts and loses a bunch of wards South of Cambridge (name will want changing to SW Cambs) Cambridge just gains Queen Ediths - no need for Milton SE Cambs then gains Sawston, Shelford and other bits South of Cambridge plus Girton to the North and loses the Ely area, now taking in almost all the suburban areas of Cambridge (you could actually add Barton as well to make an almost complete doughnut) NE Cambs then picks up the Ely area and loses WIsbech - rename this Ely So then we have the big change which is to the successor seat of SW Norfolk which picks up the Wisbech area with the name changing to Wisbech & Downham Market NW Norfolk need only gain a couple of wards to the South of Kings Lynn (and lets for goodness sake call this seat Kings Lynn Moving to the other side of Norfolk I'd propose that Great Yarmouth gains two wards from North Norfolk while the remainder of that district remains intact in the North Norfolk seat (ie gaining Fakenham from Broadland Norwich North picks up the Drayton and Taverham wards (which it had before 2010) and Norwich South simply gains Old Costessey. No need to swap any wards between the two seats and no further changes necessary to South Norfolk. Broadland then having lost Drayton, Taverham and Fakenham moves to take in the Northern part of Breckland around Dereham from the Mid Norfolk seat. (I don't think Broadland is a good name for this seat but will stick with it for now) Then what is effectively the successor to Mid Norfolk moves West to gain the Thetford area. Obviously this can no longer be called Mid Norfolk and SW Norfolk doesn;t really work either. It could be called Breckland to match the neighbouring Broadland but personally (and despite it being on the edge of the seat) I would name it Thetford |
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Post by newsouthender on Sept 17, 2016 17:13:32 GMT
Spent an interesting couple of hours looking at the plan. I don't think they have done a bad job of South Essex given the constraints. The Castle Point seat seems to be causing the most fuss locally at the moment. Basildon Labour are unsurprisingly unhappy about losing Pitsea to Castle Point as it will probably put the SB&ET seat beyond their reach in most years. However the road/rail and bus links between Benfleet and Pitsea are all excellent so it is probably difficult to argue with. Indeed the Pitsea SE ward includes the village of North Benfleet.
Castle Point Conservatives can't be happy about the removal of Hadleigh and Daws Heath to be replaced with Pitsea which can be very UKIP. The name of the seat is also interesting as the castle will no longer be in Castle Point! I would guess on balance this scheme would generate less contention though than the removal of an orphan Leigh-on-Sea ward from Southend.
As a newbie, is it worth submitting an alternative plan to the Commission? I have a couple of small changes for South Essex, essentially by moving a single ward to reunite Maldon district and remove the orphan Chelmsford ward from Basildon & Billericay but not sure what detail to provide.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 17, 2016 17:24:29 GMT
Castle Point Conservatives can't be happy about the removal of Hadleigh and Daws Heath to be replaced with Pitsea which can be very UKIP. The name of the seat is also interesting as the castle will no longer be in Castle Point!That did occur to me as being a bit odd, but then there's hardly much of a castle there anyway! I would go for Benfleet and Canvey Yes I would say it's worthwhile and especially if you are going to make minor changes without altering the fundamental shape of things. Last time round I produced an elaborate plan for the whole Eastern region, was given a polite hearing at the consultation in Luton and then roundly ignored. But I also produced some more minor modifications to the Commissions initial plan covering a few seats in Brent/Harrow/Ealing/Hillingdon and these were actually adopted as part of the revised plan. So I'd say that is the way to go and that's the approach I've taken above - its the art of the possible really. I'd say overall the Essex plans are pretty satisfactory but could certainly use some improvement in the Basildon area |
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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 Sept 18, 2016 8:46:23 GMT
Eastern Region Tally: Con 53 (+1), Lab 4 unchanged, Lib Dem 1 unchanged, UKIP 0 (-1)
Changes: Conservatives GAIN Harwich and Clacton from UKIP (but only by 774 votes)
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Post by marksenior on Sept 18, 2016 8:51:22 GMT
Eastern Region Tally: Con 53 (+1), Lab 4 unchanged, Lib Dem 1 unchanged, UKIP 0 (-1) Changes: Conservatives GAIN Harwich and Clacton from UKIP (but only by 774 votes) As pointed out elsewhere , the ( unnecessary ) addition of Milton to Cambridge changes that seat from Labour to Lib Dem . |
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iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,453
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Post by iain on Sept 18, 2016 9:09:18 GMT
Eastern Region Tally: Con 53 (+1), Lab 4 unchanged, Lib Dem 1 unchanged, UKIP 0 (-1) Changes: Conservatives GAIN Harwich and Clacton from UKIP (but only by 774 votes) As pointed out elsewhere , the ( unnecessary ) addition of Milton to Cambridge changes that seat from Labour to Lib Dem . I'm not sure it does actually. Queen Edith's extends the Labour lead, and then Milton isn't good enough to switch the seat. Had the seat been fought on those boundaries then I agree that it would have been a Lib Dem win. |
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Post by marksenior on Sept 18, 2016 9:22:03 GMT
As pointed out elsewhere , the ( unnecessary ) addition of Milton to Cambridge changes that seat from Labour to Lib Dem . I'm not sure it does actually. Queen Edith's extends the Labour lead, and then Milton isn't good enough to switch the seat. Had the seat been fought on those boundaries then I agree that it would have been a Lib Dem win. Queen Edith reduces the Labour lead by 400 ( Lib Dem majority over Labour in 2015 on GE day ). Milton had a LD lead over Labour of almost 900 although there was no Green candidate so that may in fact have been a little lower . |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 18, 2016 9:55:28 GMT
If you're talking about the local election leads then that's irrelevant. My notionals show that the Lib Dems would not have even been ahead of Labour in Queen Ediths (as much of their local vote will have gone Tory in the GE) and their lead in Milton would not have been enoughto overturn Labour's lead in Cambridge (again many local Lib Dem voters would have been Tory in the GE)
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 18, 2016 9:57:11 GMT
Eastern Region Tally: Con 53 (+1), Lab 4 unchanged, Lib Dem 1 unchanged, UKIP 0 (-1) Changes: Conservatives GAIN Harwich and Clacton from UKIP (but only by 774 votes) Anthony Wells notionals have UKIP ahead in HArwich & Clacton. I don;t know which you are going on but if theyre from Electoral calculus they're not worth bothering with |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 18, 2016 10:08:52 GMT
Fwiw here are my notionals
Cambridge
Lab 20284 34.6%
LD 19975 34.1%
Con 10567 18.0%
Grn 4589 7.8%
UKIP 3023 5.2%
Oth 187 0.3%
Very similar to AW's figures but with a somewhat higher Tory vote
Harwich & Clacton
UKIP 19894 40.0%
Con 18756 37.7%
Lab 8544 17.2%
Grn 1377 2.8%
LD 1118 2.3%
Again very similar though he has a considerably higher LD vote here (it's not clear where he found all these extra LD votes from as such LDs as there were in Harwich & North Essex were not likely to be found mainly in the Harwich area)
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Post by marksenior on Sept 18, 2016 10:34:02 GMT
If you're talking about the local election leads then that's irrelevant. My notionals show that the Lib Dems would not have even been ahead of Labour in Queen Ediths (as much of their local vote will have gone Tory in the GE) and their lead in Milton would not have been enoughto overturn Labour's lead in Cambridge (again many local Lib Dem voters would have been Tory in the GE) We will have to agree to disagree then Pete . The noteworthy part of comparing the 2015 Cambridge local and GE results is that Lib Dems did better and Labour worse In the GE compared to the local elections . Why should Queen Ediths be different . The wards excluding Q E had a LD local vote of 14755 , the GE vote in those wards was 18,047 - where did the extra 3,200 Lib Dem votes come from again why should Q E behave differently ? You also assume that a local election Lib Dem in Queens Edith voting Conservative in South Cambs GE would also have done so in a Cambridge GE whereas the figures show that in fact the Conservative vote in Cambridge was lower in the GE than in the local elections . I am 100% confident that in 2015 a Cambridge seat including Q E and Milton would have been Lib Dem and with Q E alone it would probably have been . |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 18, 2016 10:38:51 GMT
Why should Queen Edith's be different?? Maybe because it is in a different constituency with completely different electoral dynamics.
Your point about the local electiosn in the rest of Cambridge actually proves my point. You are simply taking the Lib Dem lead over Labour in the local elections in those two wards and assuming that translates exactly to how they would have been in the general election. But if you apply that logic then you can see that Labour were over 4000 ahead of the Lib Dems in the Cambridge constituency in local election votes. Does this mean that they have a notional lead in that area of 4000 in the general election? Obviously not
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 18, 2016 10:42:11 GMT
On your last sentence Mark you are probably correct, but that is not the point of notionals which is to show how votes were actually cast - not how they might have been in a different situation
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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 Sept 18, 2016 10:51:54 GMT
Eastern Region Tally: Con 53 (+1), Lab 4 unchanged, Lib Dem 1 unchanged, UKIP 0 (-1) Changes: Conservatives GAIN Harwich and Clacton from UKIP (but only by 774 votes) Anthony Wells notionals have UKIP ahead in HArwich & Clacton. I don;t know which you are going on but if theyre from Electoral calculus they're not worth bothering with In fact Electoral Calculus also gives Harwich & Clacton to UKIP. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 18, 2016 11:03:58 GMT
Then I don't know where harry's figures come from
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Sept 18, 2016 11:05:50 GMT
If you're talking about the local election leads then that's irrelevant. My notionals show that the Lib Dems would not have even been ahead of Labour in Queen Ediths (as much of their local vote will have gone Tory in the GE) and their lead in Milton would not have been enoughto overturn Labour's lead in Cambridge (again many local Lib Dem voters would have been Tory in the GE) We will have to agree to disagree then Pete . The noteworthy part of comparing the 2015 Cambridge local and GE results is that Lib Dems did better and Labour worse In the GE compared to the local elections . Why should Queen Ediths be different . The wards excluding Q E had a LD local vote of 14755 , the GE vote in those wards was 18,047 - where did the extra 3,200 Lib Dem votes come from again why should Q E behave differently ? You also assume that a local election Lib Dem in Queens Edith voting Conservative in South Cambs GE would also have done so in a Cambridge GE whereas the figures show that in fact the Conservative vote in Cambridge was lower in the GE than in the local elections . I am 100% confident that in 2015 a Cambridge seat including Q E and Milton would have been Lib Dem and with Q E alone it would probably have been . Pete's right. QE was historically never worked by Labour, because it wasn't in the parliamentary seat. As a result, when a proper campaign was run for the first time in 2012 even many Labour members voted LD in local elections. In parliamentary elections, on the other hand, there was a reasonable Labour vote in the parts of QE where demographically you would expect it - lower than it should have been, but reasonable in the context of South Cambs. That difference will have been reduced in recent years as QE has become competitive (though it's never again been worked nearly so hard and has a weaker Labour campaign apparatus than most of the rest of the city), but it won't have been eliminated. It's an area of the city where the LDs just have a much longer record of flying the local flag. In addition, it's worth considering the other side of the equation - there were a lot more LD general than local election votes in 2015 because Julian Huppert was extremely popular with a segment of the electorate that would have been straight-ticket Labour otherwise. Sebastian Kindersley will not have had the same support amongst that group. In fact I'm pretty sure we would have been ahead of the LDs in QE in 2015, because there was a 1500-vote difference across the constituency, Kindersley will have performed very strongly around Gamlingay and aside from Cottenham and possibly Cambourne, there aren't many areas in the South Cambs seat where Labour will have strongly outperformed the LDs. That said, if QE had been part of the Cambridge constituency in 2015, I suspect Huppert probably would have won it by a few percent. While it doesn't have any data for QE (as the count was administered by South Cambs DC), this post has got a lot of useful data on the difference between local and national voting in Cambridge. |
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