Foggy
Non-Aligned
Yn Ennill Yma
Posts: 6,144 
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Post by Foggy on Feb 26, 2016 17:29:29 GMT
The other exceptions vote Lib Dem, SNP and Tory. There doesn't seem to be any pattern. Anglesey votes solidly Plaid at Assembly level, so you can't even claim it's entirely an anti-Labour bias.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2016 17:34:25 GMT
Chester and Shotton works a lot better. Let's be honest here; barring the rugby team there is no connection on Deeside to any Welsh consciousness. The hinterland is Chester; travel to work is Chester or Liverpool; the locals get pissed up in Chester and if anything ails them they (eventually) end up in Chester. Indeed Chester PSB now extends to Rockliffe Hall... ;-)
As for Ryde.It isn't functionally part of Portsmouth. If anything it's functionally part of Newport.
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Feb 26, 2016 17:47:01 GMT
Menai is a suburb of Bangor but lets get real here: the only reason why Anglesey is not being treated as a Special Snowflake island is because of how it votes. Schizophrenically? |
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Post by krollo on Feb 26, 2016 20:02:05 GMT
Anglesey, Gwynedd and Conwy seem to make a workable group with three seats, average 72,746, with Ynys Mon y something, the Conwy coast and Gwynedd and Conwy Rural being (to me at least) obvious choices. Some sort of Welsh border region taking in Denbigh, Flint, Wrexham, Powys, Monmouthshire gives six seats, average 75069. Monmouthshire gains a few wards from south Breconshire, BR&M moves accordingly slightly northward, three seats can be made along the north-east but with this configuration it's tough to avoid an ugly seat like Denbigh and North Montgomeryshire, maybe with a few bits of Wrexham thrown in for good measure. Though ridiculous rural seats are essentially unavoidable in North Wales.
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Post by greatkingrat on Feb 26, 2016 20:24:02 GMT
Menai is a suburb of Bangor but lets get real here: the only reason why Anglesey is not being treated as a Special Snowflake island is because of how it votes. The Western Isles has been Labour held for long periods in the past. As for the Isle of Wight, the Conservatives resisted attempts to make it a special case, the amendment was actually forced through by Labour peers. So your conspiracy theory doesn't stack up. |
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,055
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Post by Khunanup on Feb 26, 2016 22:33:03 GMT
Among the Gogs, Anglesey should be an excepted area like Wight, Orkney & Shetland and the Outer Hebrides but it's too late to change primary legislation now. Given that it's not and Wales is losing 11 seats, I'm not sure there's a satisfactory solution up there. Cofi and Llanberis being split is surely a big no-no. And the alternative is bound to be crossing the boundary with Conwy. Is splitting Bethesda from Bangor any better though? (I'd rather be rid of all of the exceptions. A tube train and a ferry is a local tie: Ryde is functionally part of Portsmouth. And I don't really agree with privileging one part of CalMac-land over another. So I'm not going to complain about crossing the Menai; after all, Menai Bridge is blatantly a suburb of Bangor.) It really, really isn't... Anyway, the cross-Solent seat if the Island wasn't given special protection would have been Lymington and West Wight (as has been shown in papers prepared by the Boundary Commission for England before the amendment protecting the IoW was voted through). The worst thing about the Portsmouth and Ryde seat (apart from the obvious cross Solent nightmare) would have been cutting it off from not only Newport but more importantly Shanklin, Sandown and Ventnor which are to all intents and purposes outer suburbs, certainly in employment and economic terms. |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Feb 26, 2016 22:49:18 GMT
Chester and Connahs Quay Ludlow and Welshpool Hereford and Brecon. That should work ;-) That reminds me of this little rhyme: 'Tis twenty miles as the crow does fly, From Hereford to Hay-on-Wye. It would take a stronger crow, I reckon, To fly from Hereford to Brecon. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2016 23:39:17 GMT
Menai is a suburb of Bangor but lets get real here: the only reason why Anglesey is not being treated as a Special Snowflake island is because of how it votes. The Western Isles has been Labour held for long periods in the past. As for the Isle of Wight, the Conservatives resisted attempts to make it a special case, the amendment was actually forced through by Labour peers. So your conspiracy theory doesn't stack up. The final amendment to give Wight two seats was a Government amendment. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,058
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Post by Sibboleth on Feb 26, 2016 23:54:33 GMT
So your conspiracy theory doesn't stack up. There is no conspiracy theory, I'm just pretty sure that if Anglesey had voted Tory more often and more recently (or had it retained Liberal voting habits post-Lady Megan) it would have been given Special Snowflake status, no question. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
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Post by Sibboleth on Feb 26, 2016 23:57:29 GMT
I might have a proper look over this soon but there's basically no way of avoiding hideous and utterly illogical rural seats in Wales. Which means that the priority probably ought to be to drawing reasonable seats first and then making the best of what's left, rather than drawing equally sh!t seats everywhere. And certainly trying to retain existing constituencies or even to respect much local authority boundaries seems foolish.
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Feb 27, 2016 0:01:19 GMT
So your conspiracy theory doesn't stack up. There is no conspiracy theory, I'm just pretty sure that if Anglesey had voted Tory more often and more recently (or had it retained Liberal voting habits post-Lady Megan) it would have been given Special Snowflake status, no question. Why would it be even considered? It's physically connected to the mainland. It has about as much justification as Canvey Island. |
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Post by John Chanin on Feb 27, 2016 1:31:20 GMT
I might have a proper look over this soon but there's basically no way of avoiding hideous and utterly illogical rural seats in Wales. Which means that the priority probably ought to be to drawing reasonable seats first and then making the best of what's left, rather than drawing equally sh!t seats everywhere. And certainly trying to retain existing constituencies or even to respect much local authority boundaries seems foolish. I'm inclined to agree with this. With large changes inevitable with the increase in constituency size, and local authority boundaries in a state of flux, I doubt the Boundary Commission will pay much attention either. The Welsh BC has in any case been less rigid about these matters than the English one. |
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Post by Penddu on Feb 27, 2016 11:08:06 GMT
That Gwynedd North Powys seat is terrible. While Machynlleth and some other parts of western Montgomeryshire could fit with Gwynedd, better to attach northern Mongomeryshire to a Wrexham or Denbighshire seat
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cibwr
Plaid Cymru
Posts: 3,599
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Post by cibwr on Feb 27, 2016 11:42:49 GMT
Chester and Connahs Quay Ludlow and Welshpool Hereford and Brecon. That should work ;-) Troll :-) |
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Feb 27, 2016 12:54:29 GMT
Chester and Connahs Quay Ludlow and Welshpool Hereford and Brecon. That should work ;-) Troll :-) They have more local links than many existing seats in Wales. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
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Post by Sibboleth on Feb 27, 2016 14:14:06 GMT
Its a deep border, yes. On both sides.
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cibwr
Plaid Cymru
Posts: 3,599
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Post by cibwr on Feb 27, 2016 14:26:05 GMT
Well why not merge the south east of England with that of North Eastern France in the next Euro elections, after all they have so much in common......
I know the discussion of cross border seats between Wales and England is troll bait but there we are.
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Post by krollo on Feb 27, 2016 15:34:42 GMT
Anglesey, Gwynedd and Conwy seem to make a workable group with three seats, average 72,746, with Ynys Mon y something, the Conwy coast and Gwynedd and Conwy Rural being (to me at least) obvious choices. Some sort of Welsh border region taking in Denbigh, Flint, Wrexham, Powys, Monmouthshire gives six seats, average 75069. Monmouthshire gains a few wards from south Breconshire, BR&M moves accordingly slightly northward, three seats can be made along the north-east but with this configuration it's tough to avoid an ugly seat like Denbigh and North Montgomeryshire, maybe with a few bits of Wrexham thrown in for good measure. Though ridiculous rural seats are essentially unavoidable in North Wales. To wit:  Not being a Welshman, some of these seats may be utterly illogical - feel free to rebuke. (I did this using the old figures for swiftness, though based on the new ones, this general configuration should be OK as long as a few wards are shifted.) Monmouth expands northward, taking in two wards from South Powys. Accordingly, Brecon, Radnorshire and Montgomery shifts up a little also. We then have the fairly strange Denbigh and North Montgomeryshire running all the way up to St Asaph, and taking in a good slice of SW Wrexham (since taking in the panhandle is unavoidable anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound). The rest of Wrexham then forms a seat (I tried D&NM taking in only the southern rural areas of Wrexham, but it ended up looking so ridiculous I gave it up). Alyn and Deeside and Flint and North Denbighshire then divide quite naturally. These six seats have average 75069 on the new figures. The utterly ugly Conwy Coastal might be a bit tight to get working, but it has some sort of vague semblance of logic, I think. Ynys Mon y Bangor's precise wards can be adjusted to taste, and the rest of Gwynedd goes with the rest of Conwy to make something like Conwy South and Gwynedd, or Snowdonia and Llyn, or whatever. These have average 72746 on the new data so may be a little tight in places. I then lumped in Ceredigion with North Pembrokeshire, but I haven't really got much further than that. (Since Ceredigion + Pembrokeshire gives an average 68747 this won't be able to work out very nicely.) |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2016 22:32:32 GMT
James, I bloody love you
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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 Feb 27, 2016 23:00:50 GMT
North Wales Anglesey and North West Gwynedd (Ynys Môn a Gogledd Orllewin Gwynedd), Gwynedd, North Wales Coast, Denbighshire, Flintshire Coast, Flintshire Central, Wrexham and North Powys Mid Wales Ceredigion Coast and Cambrian Mountains, Mid Wales, Pembrokeshire Monmouthshire
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