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Post by greatkingrat on Sept 9, 2018 17:30:35 GMT
Under the old system they wouldn't have been reallocated. There wasn't a fixed number of seats so London getting extra doesn't mean somewhere else got less.
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Post by Peter Wilkinson on Sept 10, 2018 8:39:44 GMT
1983 boundaries in London are an interesting one. For some reason, the Boundary Commission refused to allow the creation of any constituencies which crossed two London boroughs (with the special exception of the City of London & Westminster South, of course) even though Greater London still existed as a county and even though cross-borough constituencies in other metropolitan counties (notably Stretford, Littleborough & Saddleworth, Denton & Reddish, and Tyne Bridge) were allowed for the purposes of relative equality between constituencies, and even when this resulted in some Greater London constituencies having only 2/3 to 3/4 of the average electorate. Had they been allowed, this would have resulted in (based on the average English electorate per constituency being approximately 67,415 in 1983): Hammersmith & Fulham being paired with Kensington for three seats, ironically giving the same arrangement we have now (Hammersmith, Chelsea & Fulham, and Kensington). Greenwich being paired with Bexley for five seats as is the case now (arrangement same as since 1997), Tower Hamlets and Newham being paired for four seats as they were from 1997-2010, with a similar arrangement, Redbridge and Waltham Forest being paired for five seats as they are now, and Kingston and Richmond being paired for three seats as they are now. But if this had happened for the 1983 general election where would those five seats have been reallocated to? I am currently going from memory, but if I remember things correctly, you have missed one pairing that could have had enough political repercussions to stop the review going through. Barnet had four constituencies before the review and four afterwards; Haringey had three constituencies before and two afterwards. As a consequence, the average constituency size in Barnet in 1983 was not much over 55,000, and in Haringey, not much under 80,000 (Tottenham, I think, was a bit over). The two boroughs could have been paired for six seats just under the national average - but the cross-borough constituency would have been a combination of about half of Finchley with parts of Hornsey and/or Wood Green. Remember who was MP for Finchley at the time. |
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Post by greenchristian on Sept 10, 2018 8:49:59 GMT
1983 boundaries in London are an interesting one. For some reason, the Boundary Commission refused to allow the creation of any constituencies which crossed two London boroughs (with the special exception of the City of London & Westminster South, of course) even though Greater London still existed as a county and even though cross-borough constituencies in other metropolitan counties (notably Stretford, Littleborough & Saddleworth, Denton & Reddish, and Tyne Bridge) were allowed for the purposes of relative equality between constituencies, and even when this resulted in some Greater London constituencies having only 2/3 to 3/4 of the average electorate. Had they been allowed, this would have resulted in (based on the average English electorate per constituency being approximately 67,415 in 1983): Hammersmith & Fulham being paired with Kensington for three seats, ironically giving the same arrangement we have now (Hammersmith, Chelsea & Fulham, and Kensington). Greenwich being paired with Bexley for five seats as is the case now (arrangement same as since 1997), Tower Hamlets and Newham being paired for four seats as they were from 1997-2010, with a similar arrangement, Redbridge and Waltham Forest being paired for five seats as they are now, and Kingston and Richmond being paired for three seats as they are now. But if this had happened for the 1983 general election where would those five seats have been reallocated to? I am currently going from memory, but if I remember things correctly, you have missed one pairing that could have had enough political repercussions to stop the review going through. Barnet had four constituencies before the review and four afterwards; Haringey had three constituencies before and two afterwards. As a consequence, the average constituency size in Barnet in 1983 was not much over 55,000, and in Haringey, not much under 80,000 (Tottenham, I think, was a bit over). The two boroughs could have been paired for six seats just under the national average - but the cross-borough constituency would have been a combination of about half of Finchley with parts of Hornsey and/or Wood Green. Remember who was MP for Finchley at the time. Are you implying that she wouldn't have been able to easily find another safe seat? |
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Post by islington on Sept 16, 2018 17:38:30 GMT
I'm just posting this if anyone is interested.
It's the report of the Irish boundary commission from 1917.
Fascinating stuff, and I think I'm right in saying that its recommendations were implemented in full in time for the GE the following year, with one exception so far as I can see. The commission proposed to merge Waterford City into the County and award the latter two seats. But instead, the City was maintained as a separate constituency (with slightly increased boundaries) and the remainder of the County got a single seat. It's of some historic interest because the thereby-preserved Waterford City proved to be one of only two territorial seats outside Ulster not won by Sinn Fein in 1918 (Rathmines was the other).
Other highlights include maps of the seven seats awarded to Dublin and the nine (!) to Belfast.
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piperdave
SNP
Dalkeith; Midlothian/North & Musselburgh
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Post by piperdave on Sept 17, 2018 22:01:00 GMT
I'm just posting this if anyone is interested. It's the report of the Irish boundary commission from 1917.
Fascinating stuff, and I think I'm right in saying that its recommendations were implemented in full in time for the GE the following year, with one exception so far as I can see. The commission proposed to merge Waterford City into the County and award the latter two seats. But instead, the City was maintained as a separate constituency (with slightly increased boundaries) and the remainder of the County got a single seat. It's of some historic interest because the thereby-preserved Waterford City proved to be one of only two territorial seats outside Ulster not won by Sinn Fein in 1918 (Rathmines was the other). Other highlights include maps of the seven seats awarded to Dublin and the nine (!) to Belfast.
And if you'd like another pretty map to understand the geography of the constituencies better, here's one I found earlier  |
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Post by islington on Sept 18, 2018 12:33:01 GMT
Piperdave, that's a thing of real beauty. And so is this. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/IrelandBaronies1899Map.pngIn 1885, when Irish counties were divided for Parliamentary purposes for the first time, the barony was still the principal unit below county level and was the first point of reference for the Redistribution Act. At the next review, in 1918, the number of seats in the majority of counties was unchanged and the 1885 boundaries were simply carried forward unchanged, or virtually so. Edited to add: Oh, and this too, from wikipedia illustrating the results in Ireland at the 1885 GE. So far as I can see, the boundaries are pretty accurate except that it has omitted the boundary (down the middle of Lough Corrib) between Connemara and North Galway. Each constituency returned one member except Cork City with two. These boundaries were in effect 1885-1918. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1885_(Ireland)#/media/File:United_Kingdom_general_election_1885_in_Ireland.svg |
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Post by islington on Sept 18, 2018 16:15:55 GMT
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 27, 2018 14:28:27 GMT
Is there anywhere available online, maps of the third periodic review of Westminster constituencies?
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Post by timrollpickering on Nov 27, 2018 15:04:14 GMT
For some reason, the Boundary Commission refused to allow the creation of any constituencies which crossed two London boroughs (with the special exception of the City of London & Westminster South, of course) even though Greater London still existed as a county and even though cross-borough constituencies in other metropolitan counties (notably Stretford, Littleborough & Saddleworth, Denton & Reddish, and Tyne Bridge) were allowed for the purposes of relative equality between constituencies, and even when this resulted in some Greater London constituencies having only 2/3 to 3/4 of the average electorate. It still had this attitude in later reviews - in the 2000 review it refused to consider combining Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Islington even though the resulting five seats would have been closer to quota than the six having the boroughs separate produced. The rationale was very hard to understand - no individual seat would be in three boroughs so why it was okay to have a cross borough seat at one end of a borough but beyond the pale to then have another at the other end made no sense. |
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iain
Lib Dem
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Post by iain on Nov 27, 2018 16:36:45 GMT
How different to the current seat was the old, marginal Aldridge Brownhills (1974-83)?
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Post by greenhert on Nov 27, 2018 16:52:45 GMT
For some reason, the Boundary Commission refused to allow the creation of any constituencies which crossed two London boroughs (with the special exception of the City of London & Westminster South, of course) even though Greater London still existed as a county and even though cross-borough constituencies in other metropolitan counties (notably Stretford, Littleborough & Saddleworth, Denton & Reddish, and Tyne Bridge) were allowed for the purposes of relative equality between constituencies, and even when this resulted in some Greater London constituencies having only 2/3 to 3/4 of the average electorate. It still had this attitude in later reviews - in the 2000 review it refused to consider combining Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Islington even though the resulting five seats would have been closer to quota than the six having the boroughs separate produced. The rationale was very hard to understand - no individual seat would be in three boroughs so why it was okay to have a cross borough seat at one end of a borough but beyond the pale to then have another at the other end made no sense. The rationale was projected population growth in Hackney and Tower Hamlets; for similar reasons the two Northampton seats ended up being undersized and the redrawn Bristol West seat still oversized. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Nov 27, 2018 17:00:22 GMT
I thought the boundary commission worked on the current numbers, nothing else? In any case the objection seemed more to combining three boroughs in principle than because of local factors.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 27, 2018 17:35:26 GMT
How different to the current seat was the old, marginal Aldridge Brownhills (1974-83)? I think the only difference was that it included Pheasey |
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obsie
Non-Aligned
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Post by obsie on Dec 29, 2018 17:24:46 GMT
Northern Ireland Stormont constituencies (1929-69)   The images come from the Belfast News-Letter, the frequent references to "Derry" indicating that Stroke City was not the shibboleth at the time that it has since become. In terms of gerrymandering, South Fermanagh, Mid Tyrone, and Mid Derry are all obvious efforts to pack as many Catholics as possible into single constituencies, keeping Lisnaskea and North Tyrone marginally Unionist and South Derry more safely Unionist than it might otherwise have been. Armagh illustrates a combination of packing and cracking, with South Armagh wandering up to Middletown, and the west of the county being split three ways. |
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jamie
Top Poster
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Post by jamie on Dec 29, 2018 17:58:29 GMT
"Central Armagh"
"Mid Armagh"
😡😡😡
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Dec 29, 2018 18:24:42 GMT
Northern Ireland Stormont constituencies (1929-69) How would these vote today? |
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obsie
Non-Aligned
Posts: 866
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Post by obsie on Dec 29, 2018 19:18:33 GMT
Northern Ireland Stormont constituencies (1929-69) How would these vote today? At a guess (I haven't crunched the numbers in detail because the 1923 EDs don't map neatly onto the later wards):
West of the Bann, Unionists would still win North Derry, (thanks to Portadown) Central Armagh, and possibly just about City of Derry. South Derry, South Tyrone, Enniskillen, Lisnaskea and Mid Armagh would still be reasonably close. North Tyrone and North Armagh (Lurgan and its loughshore exurbia) would be lost causes.
In Down, East Down would have flipped and West Down would be close.
In Antrim, the expansion of west Belfast across the pre-1973 city boundary and then out first into Poleglass/Twinbrook and more recently the suburbanisation of southern Antrim (Crumlin, Glenavy, etc.) by westerners mean that South Antrim would be both enormous and very marginal and Antrim would be relatively close. (In reality, a Larkfield seat was carved out in 1969 covering Andersonstown and Dunmurry which Unionists won in 1969 against a plethora of nationalist candidates but which would now be an enormous nationalist vote-sink).
In Belfast, Clifton, Oldpark and St. Anne's would have flipped (all of them would have had a certain bit of cracking within their original boundaries but the shift of Belfast west of the Lagan to be Catholic majority is the bigger factor) and similarly Cromac would have become a haven for middle-class Catholics on the west bank of the Lagan with Ballynafeigh going the same way on the eastern bank.
Updated summary: Assuming the four university seats were allocated as they were in 1969 (Newtownabbey from Carrick and Antrim, Larkfield from South Antrim, Bangor from North Down, and Lagan Valley from Mid Down) my guess would be somewhere around 26-26, with the marginals being the ones mentioned above plus Duncairn and possibly Windsor in Belfast. In reality, extra seats would have been allocated to allow for population growth in south Antrim and north Down and some of the Belfast constituencies would have been abolished or merged (Central with Dock, Shankill with Woodvale, Bloomfield with Pottinger). However, one problem with gerrymanders is that they can backfire if the underlying numbers change, as the 1973 Irish National Coalition were to discover in 1977.
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obsie
Non-Aligned
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Post by obsie on Dec 29, 2018 19:25:02 GMT
"Central Armagh" "Mid Armagh" 😡😡😡 The obvious solution would have been West Armagh covering Armagh (then) town and Keady, and East or Mid Armagh covering Portadown, Tandragee and Richhill, while keeping South Armagh closer to the then rural district boundaries, but they didn't go for it for some strange reason. If you look at the formal descriptions of the constituencies, I think every single rural district was split, often unnecessarily. |
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Post by greenhert on Dec 29, 2018 21:36:20 GMT
This was deliberate-the Stormont constituencies of the southern counties of Northern Ireland (Armagh, Fermanagh, and Tyrone) were substantially gerrymandered to favour the Unionists as much as possible.
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bsjmcr
Non-Aligned
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Post by bsjmcr on Apr 26, 2019 15:50:16 GMT
Not sure if this is in the right place - but does regard the historic Manchester Wythenshawe seat! This old 2001 election website 2001election.megasorcery.com/pcon655.htm (very interesting constituency and personality profiles though, many of which still apply today! They need a 2017 version) says that Wythenshawe was set to be 'broken up' in 1993 and after an 'inquiry' kept it together and we have the resultant pairing with Sale East. Any idea how it would have been broken up? It seems impossible to find any of the 1997 review information online, I was wondering if anyone may have known about the initial proposals and what interesting controversial proposals there may have been? Manchester Withington and Wythenshawe North? Tatton and Wythenshawe South???!!! |
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