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Post by carlton43 on Dec 30, 2023 12:51:56 GMT
I lean towards the view that if you are going to propose a constituency made up of two parts which aren't adjacent it is better to be honest that that is what you are doing than to artificially force connectivity. I don't think the Commissions would want to go there, though. Obviously disconnected constituencies used to be quite common in Scotland and Wales, thanks to the existence of Districts of Burghs/Boroughs and similar arrangements; Stirling, Falkirk & Grangemouth survived until 1983. There were also, of course, other examples owing to counties and other areas with detached parts; e.g. East Flintshire had exclaves because Flintshire did, and before 1983 Don Valley had an exclave (the parish of Denaby) because Doncaster Rural District did. This is an issue we revisit often here. Ideally constituencies should contain places connected to each other, with no detached parts, and no mountains in the way or whatever it might be. Why? |
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Post by islington on Dec 30, 2023 14:57:30 GMT
This is an issue we revisit often here. Ideally constituencies should contain places connected to each other, with no detached parts, and no mountains in the way or whatever it might be. Why? Well, why indeed? It's a fair question, because as YL pointed out just now, such a rule hasn't always obtained in the past, and even today there are exceptions to it (although usually at a pretty technical and granular level). My answer would be that it's not so much that detached parts are inherently bad as that compactness and good internal communications are inherently good. This is for two reasons. First, because 75000 electors living in a reasonably compact area (measuring compactness by the shortness of the perimeter compared with the surface area) without major internal barriers such as mountain ranges or unbridged rivers, all else being equal are likely to share a greater community of interest than 75000 voters in a sprawling constituency (with or without detached parts) and with poor communications. And secondly, as soon as messy and sprawling seats are deemed acceptable, the gerrymanderer's task becomes infinitely easier and we see the results of this in the electoral map of the US. Please note that I said 'all else being equal', so I accept that circumstances alter cases. For instance, while a highly elongated constituency is something I'd normally view with concern, it would be much more acceptable if it included a major road running the length of it and tying its component parts together.
So that's my answer to the question posed by carlton43 but other posters will have their own views. |
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 30, 2023 15:49:25 GMT
Well, why indeed? It's a fair question, because as YL pointed out just now, such a rule hasn't always obtained in the past, and even today there are exceptions to it (although usually at a pretty technical and granular level). My answer would be that it's not so much that detached parts are inherently bad as that compactness and good internal communications are inherently good. This is for two reasons. First, because 75000 electors living in a reasonably compact area (measuring compactness by the shortness of the perimeter compared with the surface area) without major internal barriers such as mountain ranges or unbridged rivers, all else being equal are likely to share a greater community of interest than 75000 voters in a sprawling constituency (with or without detached parts) and with poor communications. And secondly, as soon as messy and sprawling seats are deemed acceptable, the gerrymanderer's task becomes infinitely easier and we see the results of this in the electoral map of the US. Please note that I said 'all else being equal', so I accept that circumstances alter cases. For instance, while a highly elongated constituency is something I'd normally view with concern, it would be much more acceptable if it included a major road running the length of it and tying its component parts together.
So that's my answer to the question posed by carlton43 but other posters will have their own views. I like this as a measured and typically well expressed response, but I only partially agree with it. Having lived in the largest constituency in Britain that 'enjoys' all the disadvantages often adumbrated, and where the average elector has considerable difficulties in any form of travelling about, and where the average long-term elector has only visited a small part of the constituency in an entire lifetime, it still works and coheres remarkably well. The electors are often not canvassed at all but evince a higher determination to examine and evaluate candidates than nearly anywhere else and have a consistent very high turnout. It is also a constituency where the electorate is very homogeneous despite living huge distances apart. |
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Post by finsobruce on Dec 30, 2023 16:28:39 GMT
Ideally? Possibly. But we don't live in an ideal world. Now he tells us!  |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Dec 30, 2023 17:52:30 GMT
Defenders of FPTP argue that MPs represent a single constituency, because there is a link between MP and seat, and that seat is a single unit formed of like minded communities.
If seats are allowed to be made of any pick and mix of areas, neighbouring or not, then one pillar of that argument falls.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Dec 31, 2023 11:10:01 GMT
I think if you're to consider constituencies with detached parts, you first need to establish that there aren't better alternatives that don't have detached parts. In this case, whilst Billingham could go with Peterlee, it goes just as well with Sedgefield and Newton Aycliffe, as was the case in former iterations of the Sedgefield constituency. I'm more sympathetic to it where there are major geographic obstacles, as in Wales, but I don't think the case really stands up in this particular example.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Apr 1, 2024 16:35:51 GMT
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Post by parlconst on Apr 1, 2024 19:30:32 GMT
Anyone else finding that when you try to access a given set, it is initially centred on a small area of Cumbria, and hence only offering maps covering that area. While it is possible to use the arrow keys to move around, because you can't zoom out any further it is a very slow process to get to the area that you want.
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Post by islington on Apr 28, 2024 11:04:00 GMT
Anyone else finding that when you try to access a given set, it is initially centred on a small area of Cumbria, and hence only offering maps covering that area. While it is possible to use the arrow keys to move around, because you can't zoom out any further it is a very slow process to get to the area that you want.
Sorry, I've only just spotted this (I was on holiday in Mexico when it was posted).
I don't recognize this specific problem, although it suggests that you are defaulting to a very small scale.
My usual way of accessing the site is via the home page, where I type in the place name of the area I want. This also uncovers an annoying flaw (another one) in VoB, because sometimes it refuses to recognize some obvious and well-known place name. But because it's necessary only to hit the general area that I want, as opposed to the exact spot, this can be overcome by typing in a nearby place until I find one it does recognize. This brings up a map of the relevant area.
Click on the map, which takes you to the 'Historical Maps' page, then click on the happily-restored 'Boundary maps' tag, and you should be in business.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,804 
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Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 28, 2024 11:13:04 GMT
Anyone else finding that when you try to access a given set, it is initially centred on a small area of Cumbria, and hence only offering maps covering that area. While it is possible to use the arrow keys to move around, because you can't zoom out any further it is a very slow process to get to the area that you want. That small area of Cumbria is the geographical centre of the British Isles, so is an unsurprising default to start from. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on May 1, 2024 9:31:09 GMT
I'd missed that there was a review of Essex County Council and stumbled across the draft proposals after the deadline for consultation had ended. The requirement for all divisions to be entirely within a district, the small size of most Essex districts and the large size of Essex divisions does make it difficult to draw a good map and there are real constraints in, for example, Castle Point.
With all that said, the draft proposals are awful and this seems to be because they're almost entirely based on the council's own proposals, which seem to be a mixture of straightforward partisan shithousery and what is presumably just laziness. In some districts the proposals are better because the LGBCE received additional proposals from other quarters, but in many cases they only had the council proposals and seem to have decided they had to follow them closely. This applies even where the divisions proposed have electorates outside the usual 10% range.
Obviously this reflects poorly on the opposition groups on the county council, who should have done a better job at proposing counter-proposals. But my policy question is to what extent the LGBCE should seek additional consultation if it only gets one sets of proposals, and to what extent it should feel bound to them?
I had a look at Tendring, because it's the bit of the county I know best and it's one where the numerical constraints for divisions aren't that harsh. The council have proposed a Clacton North division with a variance of 12% and a Clacton West division with a variance of 10% and claimed they couldn't get within 10% because of tight numerical constraints, even though Clacton is in fact exactly the right size for 3 divisions with a variance of 0%. They did this because the council submission included St Osyth in a Clacton division (which it isn't at the moment) and the LGBCE seem to have been too lazy to consider alteratives without. It took me all of half an hour this morning with a notepad and a map to draw an arrangement of 8 divisions with all within 10% and with better coterminosity with district wards than the draft consultation.
What sort of checks, if any, should there be to stop this kind of institutionalised laziness?
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Post by John Chanin on May 1, 2024 11:12:18 GMT
The LGBCE doesn't always take council proposals at face value, and oftens imposes a different solution even if the consultation throws up little by the way of alternatives. However it rarely imposes a completely different pattern, tending to focus on better local boundaries.
But yes properly worked out alternative proposals help the LGBCE a lot, and I find it difficult to understand why oppositions don't put some effort in. As discussed here it's much more difficult for the likes of us who have at best polling district figures, and tend to get suggestions disregarded because they fall outside the 10% tolerance.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on May 1, 2024 13:26:59 GMT
From what I can see the proposals also stick entirely to polling district boundaries. There's clearly been a lot of laziness, both in terms of the council submission and the LGBCE response to it.
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