Trivia

[johnloony]

On the new boundaries, Croydon will have 3-and-a-half constituencies instead of the 3 which it has had since 1997 or the 4 which it had before 1997. I was wondering which of the two halves of the new constituency (Streatham & Croydon North) has more electorate: the Lambeth bit, or the Croydon bit?

Answer: of the electorate of 76,050,
the four Streatham wards had an electorate (on the qualifying date) of 39,464;
the four Croydon North wards had an electorate of 36,586.
(so Lambeth “wins”.)

but what makes this interesting is that the share of the electorate for each bit is
Lambeth 51.892176%
Croydon 48.107824%

Whereas the percentages of the vote in the EU referendum were
Leave 51.891842%
Remain 48.108158%.

So, to make the percentages the same in each case, you would have to either
persuade an extra 112 people to vote Leave instead of Remain
or
move 0.254 of a person from Streatham to Croydon.

[johnloony]

On the new constituency boundaries, if the constituency with the smallest population density had the same population density as the constituency with the largest population density, it (i.e. Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) would have an electorate of 133 million.

The other way round, Bethnal Green & Stepney would have an electorate of 42.

[johnloony]

If Keir Starmer (born 1962) becomes the next Prime Minister in succession to Rishi Sunak (born 1980), it will be the biggest increase in age between one UK prime minister and the next since Gladstone succeeded Salisbury in 1892.

The only examples so far are:
Salisbury (born 1830) succeeded by Gladstone (born 1809) in 1892
Salisbury (born 1830) succeeded by Gladstone (born 1809) in 1886
Grenville (born 1759) succeeded by Portland (born 1738) in 1807
Rockingham (born 1730) succeeded by Pitt (born in 1708) in 1766
Devonshire (born in 1720) succeeded by Newcastle (born in 1693) in 1757

[johnloony]

Since 17th April 2003, how many women prime ministers have there been in the five Scandinavian countries (Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland)?

Zero: 2,049 days (27.4% of the time)
One: 1,709 (22.9%)
Two: 2,272 (30.3%)
Three: 458 (6.1%)
Four: 996 (13.3%)
Five: 0

Mean 1.55 Median 1 Mode 2 Maximum 4

The last time that all five of them were men was 31st January 2009. Never have they been all women.

[doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️]

In the by-elections held during this parliament, to date, 494,383 votes have been cast.

[casualobserver]

Julius Caesar was returned as Member of Parliament for Reigate (1589), Bletchingley (1593) and Windsor (1597, 1601).
As Sir Julius Caesar he was returned as MP for Middlesex (1606, 1614) and Maldon (1621)

[doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️]

The more by-elections happen, the more information comes out of the total number of votes cast for each party. Labour has closed the gap, the Lib Dem vote has ballooned, and due to a large number of tiny parties, mostly of the right and far right, bunching together with a few hundred votes between them, there is a lot of jostling for 11th and 10th places without anybody breaking in quite yet.

Percentage in 2019	Votes in 2019	Party	Rank	Party	Votes in By-elections	Percentage in By-elections
47.40	459,561	Conservative	1	Conservative	187,310	33.41
32.00	310,245	Labour	2	Labour	183,993	32.82
9.74	94,397	Liberal Democrats	3	Liberal Democrats	102,740	18.32
4.30	41,704	SNP	4	SNP	18,528	3.30
2.43	23,604	Green E&W	5	Green E&W	16,539	2.95
2.26	21,878	Brexit	6	Reform	13,291	2.37
0.66	6,432	Heavy Woollen District	7	Workers	8,264	1.47
0.29	2,768	Yorkshire	8	Independent S. Lee	2,904	0.52
0.28	2,694	UKIP	9	UKIP	2,344	0.42
0.12	1,141	Shropshire	10	Independent A. Akbar	2,090	0.37

[hullenedge]

Perkin's Law (Harold Perkin, historian) clipped article from the late 60s:-

[carlton43]

Oct 22, 2023 7:08:23 GMT hullenedge said:

Perkin's Law (Harold Perkin, historian) clipped article from the late 60s:-

Still largely true and the overriding principle in the Conservative vote.  But put to the point of destruction by the astonishing and debilitating actions of the three PMs before Sunak.  The Conservatives will lose ENTIRELY because of their own stupidity and the slippage of fear of Labour in the minds of the electorate.  Labour are way off winning the next election but the Conservatives will lose it to them.

[hullenedge]

x.com/chrishanretty/status/1719399505194271181?s=20

How MPs compare on a left/right spectrum.

[hullenedge]

Alternative London boroughs:-

[jamesdoyle]

Oct 31, 2023 17:09:38 GMT hullenedge said:

x.com/chrishanretty/status/1719399505194271181?s=20

How MPs compare on a left/right spectrum.

I've been looking for something like this for ages - I tried to do my own take based on parliamentary votes, but it was very unsatisfactory. My reason for wanting it was to try and answer the question of how the parliamentary Conservative party might move leftward or rightward after the next election.

On one hand, it's made easier because although there might be a handful of gains for the Cons, most of the movement (based on polling) is away from them, so the figures will be largely based on estimates of current MPs.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be any publicly available seat-by-seat predictions from polling for the new boundaries*, and we don't yet know movements of current MPs to new seats.

Having said all that:, and using the current boundaries and the predictions from electoralcalculus:
Currently, the Tory average score (on a scale of 0-100, 100 being rightmost) is 76.17, std dev 5.13
After losses and (known, so far) retirements, the average is 76.37 and std dev 5.21

So, essentially no movement. I was hoping it would show a marked difference, but it didn't and you still have to show the results even if you don't get what you wanted!



*If anyone can point me to some, I'll redo this

[hullenedge]

Nov 10, 2023 10:41:19 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Oct 31, 2023 17:09:38 GMT hullenedge said:

x.com/chrishanretty/status/1719399505194271181?s=20

How MPs compare on a left/right spectrum.

I've been looking for something like this for ages - I tried to do my own take based on parliamentary votes, but it was very unsatisfactory. My reason for wanting it was to try and answer the question of how the parliamentary Conservative party might move leftward or rightward after the next election.

On one hand, it's made easier because although there might be a handful of gains for the Cons, most of the movement (based on polling) is away from them, so the figures will be largely based on estimates of current MPs.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be any publicly available seat-by-seat predictions from polling for the new boundaries*, and we don't yet know movements of current MPs to new seats.

Having said all that:, and using the current boundaries and the predictions from electoralcalculus:
Currently, the Tory average score (on a scale of 0-100, 100 being rightmost) is 76.17, std dev 5.13
After losses and (known, so far) retirements, the average is 76.37 and std dev 5.21

So, essentially no movement. I was hoping it would show a marked difference, but it didn't and you still have to show the results even if you don't get what you wanted!



*If anyone can point me to some, I'll redo this

x.com/jim_blagden/status/1722248072636547322?s=20

[manchesterman]

There is room for 427 MPs to sit in the HoC. (although given that MPs are of different sizes, I'm not sure how they worked this out)

Apparently, after the bombing of Parliament in WW2, Churchill was asked if he wanted it to be rebuilt larger so there would be enough seats for all MPs, but he decided against it, preferring the more intimate layout of the current chamber.

[hullenedge]

Where Rishi and SKS sit economically in relation to their MPs:-

[J.G.Harston]

Nov 15, 2023 12:47:21 GMT hullenedge said:

Where Rishi and SKS sit economically in relation to their MPs:-

And also notable that the parties' MPs are "perfectly sorted", that is, all members of the left are left of all members or the right, and all members of the right are to the right of all members of the left.

[greatkingrat]

Nov 10, 2023 14:40:44 GMT manchesterman said:

There is room for 427 MPs to sit in the HoC. (although given that MPs are of different sizes, I'm not sure how they worked this out)

Or 426 when Cyril Smith was still an MP.

[manchesterman]

Nov 15, 2023 13:22:02 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Nov 15, 2023 12:47:21 GMT hullenedge said:

Where Rishi and SKS sit economically in relation to their MPs:-

And also notable that the parties' MPs are "perfectly sorted", that is, all members of the left are left of all members or the right, and all members of the right are to the right of all members of the left.

Indeed. I'm also unclear as to how the X axis is defined. Economic position is calculated using what metrics?  Also, do we assume that the "average voter's economic position" is at the 50% mark? Which would mean that the most 'right-wing' Labour MP is the one most in tune with the average voter economically?

Or is it all just statistical jiggery-pokery?

[J.G.Harston]

Nov 15, 2023 13:30:28 GMT manchesterman said:

Nov 15, 2023 13:22:02 GMT J.G.Harston said:

And also notable that the parties' MPs are "perfectly sorted", that is, all members of the left are left of all members or the right, and all members of the right are to the right of all members of the left.

Indeed. I'm also unclear as to how the X axis is defined. Economic position is calculated using what metrics?  Also, do we assume that the "average voter's economic position" is at the 50% mark? Which would mean that the most 'right-wing' Labour MP is the one most in tune with the average voter economically?

There was something about the methodology and the translation into numbers in the FAQ, but I'm still too full of cold to get my brain to understand it. I also couldn't work out how to reproduce the above graphs with Excel. I know /what/ the charts are of, I just couldn't remember how to get Excel to do it.

[John Chanin]

Nov 4, 2023 11:14:19 GMT hullenedge said:

Alternative London boroughs:-

Excellent.  I really like the idea of living in Red Forest as a socialist environmentalist......