Trivia

[hullenedge]

Jul 15, 2024 11:22:45 GMT Defenestrated Fipplebox said:

Jul 14, 2024 12:34:06 GMT hullenedge said:

www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blog/mock-elections-2024-results

School Mock Election totals. Almost 40,000 voted.

How many seats did each party win?

Schools? Not quoted in the HS report.

[Foggy]

Much prefer the way Student Vote Canada organises mock elections, but the efforts of The Hansard Society are better than nothing, I suppose.

I seem to recall an edition of Newsround before the 2001 election in which Peter Snow stood before a graphic of the House of Commons if it had been elected by pupils, and the electoral system used appeared to be d'Hondt PR.

[hullenedge]

The changing London map with musical accompaniment:-

[minionofmidas]

I've been playing around with the parlconst website and I've discovered a tiny plot of land that has just gone to Labour for the first time since (drumroll) 1910.
In general elections that is, it was in Mid Staffordshire at the time of the famous 1990 by-election win.

No.47 here, just outside of Stoke. The site claims it holds 0.4% of the constituency's population, which honestly seems high.



Back in 1910 it was part of NW Staffordshire which surrounded Stoke, Hanley and Newcastle-under-Lyme on all sides, including many locales now in Stoke (and the county franchise voters of those boroughs had another vote there).


The even smaller plot 37, sort of visible on the left, managed the same feat in 2010, presumably having been annexed by the city.

[doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️]

A "where are they now" of MPs who first asked questions at Tony Blair's inaugural PMQs

[hullenedge]

An interesting simulation of the July election using the current German system:-

[swanarcadian]

Aug 19, 2024 14:18:54 GMT hullenedge said:

An interesting simulation of the July election using the current German system:-

Fascinating. There would probably have to be a Lab-LD-Green coalition with those numbers.

[nyx]

Aug 19, 2024 15:21:46 GMT swanarcadian said:

Aug 19, 2024 14:18:54 GMT hullenedge said:

An interesting simulation of the July election using the current German system:-

Fascinating. There would probably have to be a Lab-LD-Green coalition with those numbers.

Albeit of course voting patterns would be so different with proportional representation that it's not really possible to compare. 

[swanarcadian]

I’ve been warming considerably to the idea of PR of late but I’d feel more happy if we knew in advance which parties would be prepared to work with each other to ensure the continuation of stable government. A bit like the Scandinavian model.
The ideal would be a blue bloc, Con+Reform+Unionists vs a red bloc, Lab+Green+SDLP. I’m not sure where the Lib Dems would fit into that but I imagine they’d tend to support the side with the most votes, as in 2010. It might sound a comical idea to us Brits today, but PR would necessitate it as it does elsewhere.

[noorderling]

Aug 19, 2024 17:06:33 GMT swanarcadian said:

I’ve been warming considerably to the idea of PR of late but I’d feel more happy if we knew in advance which parties would be prepared to work with each other to ensure the continuation of stable government. A bit like the Scandinavian model.
The ideal would be a blue bloc, Con+Reform+Unionists vs a red bloc, Lab+Green+SDLP. I’m not sure where the Lib Dems would fit into that but I imagine they’d tend to support the side with the most votes, as in 2010. It might sound a comical idea to us Brits today, but PR would necessitate it as it does elsewhere.

We’ve had two occasions where parties declared before the election that they would form a government together if the arithmetic would allow it. In 1973 the left offered an alternative government with named candidates for the available posts. They did not get a majority, so nothing came of it. In 1986 CDA and VVD went into the election with the stated intention of continuing the Lubbers government. They kept their majority, but Lubbers’ victory came at the expense of the VVD, and further strengthened already existing tensions between the two parties. Certainly the Christian Democrats aimed at keeping their options open at much as possible, because until 1994 a coalition between VVD and PvdA seemed to be impossible. 

In general the practice is now more let’s wait and see what dog’s breakfast the voters produce and which majorities are available.

Some parties do state before the election that they will not work with Wilders. This time round Yesilhoz did not follow this practice, and left the door to door ajar, a major aspect in Wilders’ victory in November.

[stb12]

In New Zealand (with an MMP system) the Greens have a standing arrangement to support Labour and ACT have always said they’ll only work with the National Party

New Zealand First have been more uncertain and have had coalitions with both of the bigger parties

[batman]

Jul 21, 2024 14:37:02 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

A "where are they now" of MPs who first asked questions at Tony Blair's inaugural PMQs

some would say that the Tories' decline in that constituency started with his tenure. He was widely disliked by many constituents & also by his local Conservative Association. His retirement & replacement by Raab improved the party's position for a time, but not for very long as it became clear that Raab was far from lacking in the sort of arrogance that Taylor was often, rightly or wrongly, noted for.

[kitesurfer]

Aug 19, 2024 18:54:16 GMT batman said:

Jul 21, 2024 14:37:02 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

A "where are they now" of MPs who first asked questions at Tony Blair's inaugural PMQs

some would say that the Tories' decline in that constituency started with his tenure. He was widely disliked by many constituents & also by his local Conservative Association. His retirement & replacement by Raab improved the party's position for a time, but not for very long as it became clear that Raab was far from lacking in the sort of arrogance that Taylor was often, rightly or wrongly, noted for.

The ebb and flow of Conservative support in Esher is a curious one.

Knowing what we do now, it seems odd that Ian Taylor was relatively unpopular in the seat given the fact that he was an arch Europhile. His majority went down all the time. Did his views on Europe play a role in his unpopularity or was he deeply unpopular on a personal level that it more than cancelled out his views on Europe?.A small part of me wondered in 2010 if the Lib Dems might have a chance (particularly during Clegg mania), but the Tory majority shot up very heavily once Raab turned up and it increased a lot in 2015 too. Raab seemed a good match for the area at the time and I wondered then if people liked his views on Europe. He and the Tories were not punished too much in 2017 either.

For some reason, however, everything went very south for Raab and the Tories in 2019. The size of the Lib Dem majority last month surprised me. I thought it would be about 8,000 or so.

[uthacalthing]

Broadly, the Conservative rank and file, were, are and will be Eurosceptic, by which I mean they don't like the Eu, they don't want to be part of it.

By contrast, people who are part of or who aspire to be part of The Establishment tend to be generally well-disposed towards the EU.

If you select, then if you elect, people who look as if they have the makings of being part of the establishment, then by definition, you will select and elect people who you then will despise, which is a problem for Tories as they are devoted to being led by "the Establishment"

The alternative of course is to select and elect Wreckers, like Farage, and that brings its own problems.

There are not enough Doug Carswells to go around

[greenchristian]

Aug 19, 2024 23:15:52 GMT kitesurfer said:

Aug 19, 2024 18:54:16 GMT batman said:

some would say that the Tories' decline in that constituency started with his tenure. He was widely disliked by many constituents & also by his local Conservative Association. His retirement & replacement by Raab improved the party's position for a time, but not for very long as it became clear that Raab was far from lacking in the sort of arrogance that Taylor was often, rightly or wrongly, noted for.

The ebb and flow of Conservative support in Esher is a curious one.

Knowing what we do now, it seems odd that Ian Taylor was relatively unpopular in the seat given the fact that he was an arch Europhile. His majority went down all the time. Did his views on Europe play a role in his unpopularity or was he deeply unpopular on a personal level that it more than cancelled out his views on Europe?.A small part of me wondered in 2010 if the Lib Dems might have a chance (particularly during Clegg mania), but the Tory majority shot up very heavily once Raab turned up and it increased a lot in 2015 too. Raab seemed a good match for the area at the time and I wondered then if people liked his views on Europe. He and the Tories were not punished too much in 2017 either.

For some reason, however, everything went very south for Raab and the Tories in 2019. The size of the Lib Dem majority last month surprised me. I thought it would be about 8,000 or so.

Back in 2010, when Taylor left Parliament, Europe was a fringe issue for the electorate. It was important to only a handful of people (and those being solely on the Eurosceptic end of the issue, since leaving the EU was outside the Overton Window t that point). It only really became important to the population at large in 2016, when the Brexit referendum and its aftermath meant that the issue took over pretty much all of British politics for several years. So I think we can say with some confidence that Taylor's popularity (or lack thereof) in his constituency had nothing at all to do with his views on Europe.

[batman]

This is the first postwar House of Commons without an MP with the surname Brown. There is a Jess Brown-Fuller, but no Brown. There is also only one MP called Williams, which is unusually low, and none in Wales where it's the second commonest surname after Jones. Still a reasonable smattering of Smiths, Joneses & Taylors. There was quite an influx of Tory Fletchers in 2019, but they all lost their seats to Labour this year.

[Devil Wincarnate]

From the FT: what proportion of the new Parliament are landlords?

There are 44 Labour landlords, 28 Tory and 8 LD. One other is not confirmed.

The top five landlords by property are:
- Jas Athwal, Lab, Ilford South. 18 properties.
- Jeremy Hunt, Con, Godalming & Ash, 9 properties.
- Gurinder Josan, Lab, Smethwick. 8 properties.
- Bayo Alaba, Lab, Southend West. 7 properties.
- Tom Tugendhat, Con, Tonbridge. 4 properties (but from the sounds of it, there are a fair number with 3).

Of which, several are co-owned with others.

85 MPs own 184 rental properties between them.

[YL]

Aug 21, 2024 7:46:01 GMT greenchristian said:

Aug 19, 2024 23:15:52 GMT kitesurfer said:

The ebb and flow of Conservative support in Esher is a curious one.

Knowing what we do now, it seems odd that Ian Taylor was relatively unpopular in the seat given the fact that he was an arch Europhile. His majority went down all the time. Did his views on Europe play a role in his unpopularity or was he deeply unpopular on a personal level that it more than cancelled out his views on Europe?.A small part of me wondered in 2010 if the Lib Dems might have a chance (particularly during Clegg mania), but the Tory majority shot up very heavily once Raab turned up and it increased a lot in 2015 too. Raab seemed a good match for the area at the time and I wondered then if people liked his views on Europe. He and the Tories were not punished too much in 2017 either.

For some reason, however, everything went very south for Raab and the Tories in 2019. The size of the Lib Dem majority last month surprised me. I thought it would be about 8,000 or so.

Back in 2010, when Taylor left Parliament, Europe was a fringe issue for the electorate. It was important to only a handful of people (and those being solely on the Eurosceptic end of the issue, since leaving the EU was outside the Overton Window t that point). It only really became important to the population at large in 2016, when the Brexit referendum and its aftermath meant that the issue took over pretty much all of British politics for several years. So I think we can say with some confidence that Taylor's popularity (or lack thereof) in his constituency had nothing at all to do with his views on Europe.

His unpopularity in his local Conservative Association may well have been partly to do with his views on the EU, though, and unpopularity in the association might be picked up on by the electorate.

Anyway, I don't think the Tories' eventual loss of his old seat had much to do with him. He only really had one poor result (2005) and after he retired the Tories got to 62.9% of the vote and a majority not far short of 30,000 in 2015, not the sort of result that suggests they were in any sort of trouble at that point. But then it all started to go downhill.

[carlton43]

Aug 23, 2024 6:31:43 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

From the FT: what proportion of the new Parliament are landlords?

There are 44 Labour landlords, 28 Tory and 8 LD. One other is not confirmed.

The top five landlords by property are:
- Jas Athwal, Lab, Ilford South. 18 properties.
- Jeremy Hunt, Con, Godalming & Ash, 9 properties.
- Gurinder Josan, Lab, Smethwick. 8 properties.
- Bayo Alaba, Lab, Southend West. 7 properties.
- Tom Tugendhat, Con, Tonbridge. 4 properties (but from the sounds of it, there are a fair number with 3).

Of which, several are co-owned with others.

85 MPs own 184 rental properties between them.

But pre-WW1 there would have been many MPs owing more than that total EACH!

[Deleted]

Aug 23, 2024 10:30:27 GMT carlton43 said:

Aug 23, 2024 6:31:43 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

From the FT: what proportion of the new Parliament are landlords?

There are 44 Labour landlords, 28 Tory and 8 LD. One other is not confirmed.

The top five landlords by property are:
- Jas Athwal, Lab, Ilford South. 18 properties.
- Jeremy Hunt, Con, Godalming & Ash, 9 properties.
- Gurinder Josan, Lab, Smethwick. 8 properties.
- Bayo Alaba, Lab, Southend West. 7 properties.
- Tom Tugendhat, Con, Tonbridge. 4 properties (but from the sounds of it, there are a fair number with 3).

Of which, several are co-owned with others.

85 MPs own 184 rental properties between them.

But pre-WW1 there would have been many MPs owing more than that total EACH!

I'm pretty sure the 184 total was significantly surpassed by a single MP as recently as 2019 (Richard Benyon).