'Old Rules' Boundary Review

[afleitch]

Anyone fancy doing a Review on the basis of the 'old rules' for redistrubution?. It might end in literal tears, but might be interesting to compare the partisan effect of both reviews

[afleitch]

Figures for England I have are 37,399,942. Which divided by 533 gives 70,169 as a quota

[Pete Whitehead]

Yes. I'm guessing we'd be up for 12 seats in Hertfordshire on that basis

[afleitch]

Mar 25, 2016 18:25:47 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Yes. I'm guessing we'd be up for 12 seats in Hertfordshire on that basis

Just short. 11.42. The harmonic mean for 12 would be 11.48.

[Pete Whitehead]

Bollocks I'm not playing then - not while Wales still gets 40 seats. Should be old rules but with a UK-wide quota

[East Anglian Lefty]

12 seats for Hertfordshire is fairly dull anyway - four of the seats are co-terminous with their local authorities and most of the rest draw themselves. It's definitely a better representation of communities than the current map (still less whatever we'll get this time) but there's no real challenge or uncertainty to drawing it.

[Pete Whitehead]

Sure it's not something I haven't done before a million times - I've done every possible configuration fo boundaries for Hertfordshire I should think from 10 seats to 20+. My point was more that the whole exercise is likely to be dull and not just in hertfordshire, because in most places the number of seats won't change and there isn;t even a huge impetus to even up electorates, but also that I have a philosophical objection to the continued under-representation of England (and Hertfordshire just illustrates the point because the over-representation of Wales comes at the expense of English counties like that). It's all they needed to do frankly was bring in a uniform quota for the UK - no need for 5% limits and therefore no need for crossing county boundaries. No need to go down to 600 seats either, though if they really wanted to do that it doesn't necessitate the other stuff

[Pete Whitehead]

With a uniform national quota England would have 543 seats (+10) Scotland 57 (-2) and Wales 32 (-8) (NI no change) then simply assign seats to counties in the usual way - some are going to be bigger than others so big deal. At least no particluar area of the UK is going to be glaringly over-represented and you don't have the difficulty of trying to draw sensible seats in London and the Met boroughs (especially) by staying within some arbitray limit. Anyway I doubt I have many dissenters on here and we are where we are, but if we're going to discuss a 'what might the boundaries look like if they were done under some system other than what they are being done under' then I choose a different (but not very) system to the old rules

[andrewteale]

Mar 25, 2016 19:57:38 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Bollocks I'm not playing then - not while Wales still gets 40 seats. Should be old rules but with a UK-wide quota

But that wouldn't be old rules, which is the point of the thread.

[The Bishop]

IMO the fact "old rules" is in inverted commas allows a bit of leeway here......

[andrewteale]

Let's look into this for England. The quota under the 2000 review rules is 70169.

The East Midlands looks like only minimal change:

Derbyshire (including Derby) 10.78 quotas rounds to 11 seats (no change)
Leicestershire (including Leicester and Rutland) 10.47 quotas rounds to 10 seats (no change). Leicester is 3.00 quotas so would likely continue to be considered separately with 7 seats for the rest of Leicestershire and Rutland.
Lincolnshire 7.43 quotas rounds to 7 seats (no change).
Northamptonshire 7.03 quotas rounds to 7 seats (no change).
Nottinghamshire (including Nottingham) 10.96 quotas rounds to 11 seats (no change).

[andrewteale]

For the Eastern region:

Bedfordshire (including Luton) 6.26 quotas rounds to 6 seats (no change). Of this Bedford is 1.68, Central Beds 2.81 and Luton 1.77; if you try and hive any of those off into one unit you would end up with 7 seats for Bedfordshire, so the county would be treated as one block.

Cambridgeshire (including Peterborough) 7.91 quotas rounds to 8 seats (up 1).

Essex (including Southend and Thurrock) 18.16 quotas rounds to 18 seats (no change).

Hertfordshire 11.42 quotas rounds to 11 seats (no change).

Norfolk 9.20 quotas rounds to 9 seats (no change).

Suffolk 7.50 quotas rounds to 8 seats (up 1).

So extra seats for Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.

[andrewteale]

For the North East:

County Durham (including Darlington) 6.45 quotas rounds to 6 seats (down 1). Darlington is 1.07 quotas so the effect of this could be a seat covering the whole borough.

Northumberland 3.31 quotas rounds to 3 seats (down 1).

Cleveland 5.65 quotas rounds to 6 seats (no change). As now that would be 1 seat for Hartlepool, 2 for Stockton and 3 for the other two districts.

Tyne and Wear 11.30 quotas rounds to 11 seats (down 1). Allocating seats separately to each of the boroughs would give 12 seats, and Newcastle and South Tyneside need pairing. The most likely option is that Sunderland (2.93) keeps its three seats, with eight seats for the other four boroughs and a return for Tyne Bridge.

Overall three seats lost in the North East.

[greatkingrat]

Mar 27, 2016 20:14:33 GMT andrewteale said:

Suffolk 7.50 quotas rounds to 8 seats (up 1).

Heres my 8 seat Suffolk plan

[andrewteale]

North West:

Cheshire (including Halton and Warrington) 11.02 quotas rounds to 11 seats (no change). These would probably be four for Cheshire East (3.86), two for Warrington (2.18) and five for Cheshire West (3.66) and Halton (1.32).

Cumbria 5.33 quotas rounds to 5 seats (down 1). I can't see special geographical considerations being invoked here to keep the sixth seat.

Lancashire (including Blackburn and Blackpool) 14.98 quotas rounds to 15 seats (no change).

Merseyside 13.94 quotas rounds to 14 seats (down 1). The seat which disappears is on the Wirral which has fallen to 3.35 quotas rounding to 3 seats (down 1). Minimal change is likely north of the Mersey.

Greater Manchester 27.04 quotas rounds to 27 seats (no change). Some changes are needed to the pairings as the entitlement of the current Manchester/Salford/Trafford group has gone up from nine seats to ten. This is likely to be solved by moving Salford out of that group and grouping it with Bolton and Wigan: that would give seven seats for Manchester and Trafford, eight for Bolton, Salford and Wigan, two for Bury, two for Rochdale and eight for Oldham, Tameside and Stockport.

Overall the North West loses 2 seats.

[andrewteale]

South East:

Berkshire 8.38 quotas rounds to 8 seats (no change).

Buckinghamshire (including Milton Keynes) 7.65 quotas rounds to 8 seats (up 1). The new seat is likely to straddle the MK/Bucks border as Milton Keynes' entitlement has gone up to 2.42.

East Sussex (including Brighton and Hove) 8.07 quotas rounds to 8 seats (no change).

Hampshire (including Portsmouth and Southampton) 18.15 quotas rounds to 18 seats (no change). Minimal change is likely but it should now be possible to treat Southampton separately.

Isle of Wight 1.503 quotas rounds to 2 seats (up 1). That should probably be enough for the Commission to finally allocate a second seat to the island.

Kent (including Medway) 17.488 quotas rounds to 18 seats (up 1, just: 17 seats gives a county average 2013 above quota, 18 seats gives a county average 1997 below quota). The extra seat is likely to be in the east of the county where Swale, Ashford and Shepway districts have had a big rise in their electorate since 2000.

Oxfordshire 6.57 quotas rounds to 7 seats (up 1).

Surrey 11.64 quotas rounds to 12 seats (up 1).

West Sussex 8.53 quotas rounds to 9 seats (up 1).

Overall the South East gains six seats.

[andrewteale]

South West:

Avon 11.17 quotas rounds to 11 seats (no change). No change is likely to the current allocations of two seats for North Somerset, two for BANES, three for South Gloucestershire and four for Bristol.

Cornwall (including Scillonia) 5.61 quotas rounds to 6 seats (no change).

Devon (including Plymouth and Torbay) 12.15 quotas rounds to 12 seats (no change).

Dorset (including Bournemouth and Poole) 7.92 quotas rounds to 8 seats (no change). The Commission may be tempted to review Bournemouth (1.86) separately.

Gloucestershire 6.56 quotas rounds to 7 seats (up 1).

Somerset 5.54 quotas rounds to 6 seats (up 1).

Wiltshire (including Swindon) 7.06 quotas rounds to 7 seats (no change). It's obvious to review Swindon (2.12) and Wiltshire (4.94) separately.

Overall the South West gains 2 seats.

[andrewteale]

West Midlands:

Herefordshire 1.90 quotas rounds to 2 seats (no change).

Shropshire (including Telford and Wrekin) 4.97 quotas rounds to 5 seats (no change).

Staffordshire (including Stoke) 11.62 quotas rounds to 12 seats (no change).

Warwickshire 5.72 quotas rounds to 6 seats (no change).

Worcestershire 6.10 quotas rounds to 6 seats (no change).

West Midlands 26.55 quotas rounds to 27 seats (down 1). Coventry (2.99) keeps its 3 seats; Solihull (2.19) keeps 2; Birmingham (9.79) keeps 10. The seat which disappears is in the Black Country, with the Dudley/Sandwell/Wolverhampton group falling from ten seats to nine.

Overall the West Midlands loses one seat.

[andrewteale]

Yorkshire and the Humber:

Humberside 9.43 quotas rounds to 9 seats (down 1). The seat which disappears is clearly Brigg and Goole, with six seats north of the Humber and three seats on the south shore.

North Yorkshire (including York) 8.41 quotas rounds to 8 seats (no change). York (2.10) should continue to be treated separately.

South Yorkshire 13.57 quotas rounds to 14 seats (no change). Minimal change is likely here, with 3 seats for Doncaster (3.01) and 11 for the other three boroughs.

West Yorkshire 21.63 quotas rounds to 22 seats (no change). No change is likely to the current allocations of five seats for Bradford (4.66), two for Calderdale (2.04), four for Kirklees (4.21) and eleven for Leeds and Wakefield (10.73).

Overall Yorkshire and the Humber loses one seat.

[East Anglian Lefty]

In Cambridgeshire, Peterborough could remain unchanged and Cambridge could too, but it's really a coin-flip whether or not you add Queen Edith's.

North East Cambs then becomes co-extensive with Fenland district, which means South East Cambs has to shed about 25000 electors and will end up with only a handful of South Cambs wards.

I tried bringing back South West Cambs, but the old version would have other 90,000 electors now and no matter how you try to prune it Cambridge always gets in the way. So instead it's easier to cross the South Cambs-Hunts boundary in the north, along the line of the A14 and the guided bus.

So probably something like this: