What interests you about Psephology?

[greenhert]

I am fascinated by the numbers and statistics in particular and how they came to be; the questions surrounding results fascinate me endlessly

I am also very interested demographic change as well and how it acts in the long-term on British politics.

[greenchristian]

Aug 14, 2018 19:27:03 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

I’m really interested in demographic change.

I first got into this after 2010 when the Tories picked up seats like Cannock Chase, Sherwood, Warwickshire North etc while failing to win Edgbaston, Wirral South and similar seats.

Of course the countervailing trends only accelerated in 2015 and 2017 so my interests were piqued even more.

I think you mean North Warwickshire.

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2018 20:59:04 GMT greenchristian said:

Aug 14, 2018 19:27:03 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

I’m really interested in demographic change.

I first got into this after 2010 when the Tories picked up seats like Cannock Chase, Sherwood, Warwickshire North etc while failing to win Edgbaston, Wirral South and similar seats.

Of course the countervailing trends only accelerated in 2015 and 2017 so my interests were piqued even more.

I think you mean North Warwickshire.

Not sure that Wirral South is all that similar to Birmingham Edgbaston either...

[Andrew_S]

I'm still not sure how I got interested in the subject.

[carlton43]

It is also a form of collecting and collecting is predicated on the actuality or the allusion of perfectibility. In an uncertain world we have this quite large but closed system with known boundaries and defined parameters. But to avoid staleness there are a constant flow of alterations through by-election and boundary adjustments. Then major events to look forward to in GE and complete boundary reviews. It is small enough to master yet organic enough to be ever-changing. It is, like jazz, a form of mental masturbation.

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2018 22:45:43 GMT @benjamin said:

Aug 14, 2018 20:59:04 GMT greenchristian said:

I think you mean North Warwickshire.

Not sure that Wirral South is all that similar to Birmingham Edgbaston either...

Suburban seat that was safely Tory until 1997 with a high proportion of public sector workers.

Both seats that the Conservatives came within 2,000 votes of winning in 2010 but where Labour won convincingly in 2017.

Similar in a psephological sense.

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2018 20:59:04 GMT greenchristian said:

Aug 14, 2018 19:27:03 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

I’m really interested in demographic change.

I first got into this after 2010 when the Tories picked up seats like Cannock Chase, Sherwood, Warwickshire North etc while failing to win Edgbaston, Wirral South and similar seats.

Of course the countervailing trends only accelerated in 2015 and 2017 so my interests were piqued even more.

I think you mean North Warwickshire.

same thing.

[pragmaticidealist]

I like numbers in general. Electoral, dates, sums etc.

[Deleted]

Sept 3, 2016 18:23:48 GMT carlton43 said:

It is never an 'interest' but always a sickness that affects a small minority. It is allied to list-making and a liking for maps, tables and timetables. It also seems associated with real ale, cricket, football and railways? I wonder what the penetration is of Jazz?

I know this is years old, however it's interesting you say that because I have interests in all of those things except for Real Ale.

However, my interest in psephology is also largely political as it was caused by several political events.

[Arthur Figgis]

Aug 15, 2018 8:54:04 GMT pragmaticidealist said:

I like numbers in general. Electoral, dates, sums etc.

Me too.

[greenchristian]

Aug 15, 2018 6:53:23 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Aug 14, 2018 20:59:04 GMT greenchristian said:

I think you mean North Warwickshire.

same thing.

That may be your opinion, estimateconservative, but the constituency's name is definitely North Warwickshire, not Warwickshire North. There is a convention in Constituency names that compass points come after the name of a town or city, but before the name of a county. I can't think of any constituencies (past or present) which have not followed this rule, and am baffled at the way that some people seem to wrongly think that this constituency is the one exception to the rule.

[Deleted]

Aug 15, 2018 11:37:12 GMT greenchristian said:

Aug 15, 2018 6:53:23 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

same thing.

That may be your opinion, estimateconservative, but the constituency's name is definitely North Warwickshire, not Warwickshire North. There is a convention in Constituency names that compass points come after the name of a town or city, but before the name of a county. I can't think of any constituencies (past or present) which have not followed this rule, and am baffled at the way that some people seem to wrongly think that this constituency is the one exception to the rule.

North East Derbyshire or Derbyshire North East?

[greatkingrat]

North Swindon / South Swindon
Clywd West / Clywd South
South Basildon and East Thurrock

[johnloony]

My interest in politics, elections and electoral systems started with the Bermondsey by-election in 1983. I was fascinated by the long list of candidates with their party names and descriptions. My interest in politics seems to have developed as a side-effect of my interest in elections, rather than the other way round.

It must have been at about the same time that my parents found and gave to me an old copy of the F.W.S. Craig book of the election results from Feb 1974 to 1977, which was useful in enabling me to discover the plethora of political parties in Northern Ireland at that time, and I discovered the WRP etc.

The 1983 general election was exciting because it was the first general election that I was properly politically aware of.

[therealriga]

Aug 15, 2018 11:37:12 GMT greenchristian said:

Aug 15, 2018 6:53:23 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

same thing.

That may be your opinion, estimateconservative, but the constituency's name is definitely North Warwickshire, not Warwickshire North. There is a convention in Constituency names that compass points come after the name of a town or city, but before the name of a county. I can't think of any constituencies (past or present) which have not followed this rule, and am baffled at the way that some people seem to wrongly think that this constituency is the one exception to the rule.

The convention isn't about towns or cities, it's about borough and county constituencies. The former tend to be in cities and the latter cover all the county ones but will sometimes cover city constituencies which include a substantial rural element. AFAIK Luton North was originally North Luton when created. Milton Keynes is another example. In 2005 there was North East MK and MK South West.

Exception 1: Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. I believe it is a county constituency and therefore should be South Middlesbrough and East Cleveland. If it's a borough constituency it should be Middlesbrough South and Cleveland East.

Exception 2: Romsey and Southampton North is a county constituency.

Exception 3: North East Milton Keynes was largely replaced by Milton Keynes North, which is a county constituency.

*Edit* Both New Forest seats as well. They don't seem very good at keeping to their own rules.

[greatkingrat]

The Boundary Commission for England's guide for the current review say:

44 The BCE adopts compass point names when there is not a more suitable name.
The compass point reference used will generally form a prefix in cases where
the rest of the constituency name refers to the county area or a local council, but
a suffix where the rest of the name refers to a population centre. Examples of
existing constituencies that demonstrate these principles are North Shropshire
and Reading West.

[johnloony]

Aug 15, 2018 16:03:28 GMT greatkingrat said:

The Boundary Commission for England's guide for the current review say:

44 The BCE adopts compass point names when there is not a more suitable name.
The compass point reference used will generally form a prefix in cases where
the rest of the constituency name refers to the county area or a local council, but
a suffix where the rest of the name refers to a population centre. Examples of
existing constituencies that demonstrate these principles are North Shropshire
and Reading West.

Almost all references to all constituencies of both types, in general media coverage, use the compass points as suffixes. The Boundary Commission should grasp the nettle by the horns and adopt the same method officially, instead of all this pompous faffing-about with different types of names.

[sirbenjamin]

Compass points *should* always come at the end, so as to avoid ambiguities where the compass point forms part of the place name e.g.West Bromwich, East Grinstead - that way, if the compass point is first, you then know it's part of the place name, not a psephological division and - almost always - vice versa.

[islington]

I've just noticed this very interesting thread. I don't mean the stuff about compass-point names (which I agree is interesting but it's been rehearsed countless times before); I mean the original topic about why we got interested in the whole topic.

I tick a lot of the same boxes as other respondents. I'm politically engaged, I've always been good with numbers and I have an abiding love of maps. (To my mind, there's nothing that so felicitously combines beauty and utility as a well-crafted map. I can sit poring over it for hours, and still find intriguing new details.)

So this brings together a lot of my interests, including the British politics of the past as well as the present day.

There's also a very strong appeal in the way that the apportionment and boundary-drawing process involves applying a rule-based approach to something that is intrinsically fluid - the distribution and shift of population.

Of the other topics mentioned, I must admit that beer and railways don't do a lot for me but I definitely agree about the cricket - you can google my name (I think I'm now unmasked as John Bryant) with the word 'cricket' attached and you'll see what I mean.

[froome]

Confession time...

I actually had no interest in psephology when i first joined this site (or rather its predecessor, Vote 2007).

Awaits brickbats and other unmentionables being hurled through my computer screen.

I joined because I'm interested in voting and political discussions, and felt I could learn a lot from others more politically experienced, and I have.

But I have also now developed an interest in psephology as well, although perhaps not to the extent that many on here have.

And I do share an interest in numbers and in places, the more obscure the better, and especially in maps, and also maps, and maps again.

So more maps please. And not necessarily voting ones.