Let the great boundary rejig commence

[Peter the Lefty]

Hooray for Tory gerrymandering!

As if the British electoral system wasn't already biased towards the Torries.

[You kip if you want to...]

Hooray for Tory gerrymandering!

As if the British electoral system wasn't already biased towards the Torries.

I wonder who'll be the first to go on a rant about this.

[afleitch]

Hooray for Tory gerrymandering!

As if the British electoral system wasn't already biased towards the Torries.

I wonder who'll be the first to go on a rant about this.

I would, but have no idea who the Torries are...

[Insula Dei]

Hooray for Tory gerrymandering!

As if the British electoral system wasn't already biased towards the Torries.

It is, but it is biased more towards Labour.

[afleitch]

http://www.bcomm-scotland.gov.uk/6th_westminster/initial_proposals/

[afleitch]

The site also contains all stages of the process including alternate but dismissed arrangements for some seats.

[afleitch]

What a f---ing embarassment.

"I know! Let's take the whole of the Dundee City East Scottish Parliament seat and combine it with western Angus and then take the whole of Dundee City West and combine it with the Gowrie and eastern Perthshire.

F-ck You Dundee. Right in the f-cking ass!"

[You kip if you want to...]

That Moray seat is a complete eyesore.

Charles Kennedy to fall on his sword and retire for Danny Alexander?

[afleitch]

That Moray seat is a complete eyesore.

Actually, it's one of the best seats drawn! It follows Strathspey so it follows the lines of communication almost perfectly.

[Novelty]

Based on those boundaries, and the last election results, what are the expected changes in seats?  Has anyone calculated that?  Or better still, produced a map?

[YL]

Based on those boundaries, and the last election results, what are the expected changes in seats?  Has anyone calculated that?  Or better still, produced a map?

For England, Anthony Wells of UKPollingReport has done some notional results:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/4043

I imagine notionals for other parts of the UK will follow.

In Northern Ireland, the basics are fairly obvious: SDLP down 1 (South Belfast abolished), DUP down 1 (East Londonderry flipped to Sinn Féin and renamed Glenshane), SF no change (Mid-Ulster abolished but they gain Glenshane).

[afleitch]

Based on those boundaries, and the last election results, what are the expected changes in seats?  Has anyone calculated that?  Or better still, produced a map?

It's very difficult to do as the changes are so vast and the only ward data is multi-member data from 2007.

Take Galloway and Carrick. The Commission says that 42% of the old Dumfries and Galloway is now in Galloway and Carrick. The rest is in Dumfries. So Labour solid Dumfries and the surrounding areas are now in Dumfries which extends into Annandale. So Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweedale is abolished, bye bye Mundell. However this frees up Galloway to be connected with Carrick and the best Tory performing parts of Ayr. It's possible that therefore Galloway and Carrick is notionally Conservative. The arrangment in Kyle and Carrick is also better for the Tories, though Labour would win it notionally.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, it makes things complicated. Mundell seems to be as absolutely fycked as any incumbent anywhere, but that doesn't mean that all Tory hopes in the South of Scotland have been killed off. Especially as he only really owes his seat to a previous wacky decision by the boundary doodlers.

[afleitch]

https://consultation.scottishboundaries.gov.uk/

Interactive whizzbang mapping.

[YL]

As already posted in another place:

There are certainly criticisms that can be made here, but compared with some of the English stuff it doesn't seem too bad.  Ward splitting in Scotland may have been unavoidable but I still hope the BCE take note that it's not the end of the world and generally allows the 5% rule to be that bit more manageable.  I'm also impressed by the amount of information they've given, and their mapping is better than the BCE's.

Dundee doesn't look good, and a few towns here and there that it seems shouldn't need to be split have been.  The idea of Lochaber in with Argyll and Bute seems OK, but I'm not convinced by the actual border.

[Harry Hayfield]

Based on those boundaries, and the last election results, what are the expected changes in seats?  Has anyone calculated that?  Or better still, produced a map?

I am working through them now (am up to Edinburgh). The changes are (so far):
Dumfries: Lab WIN

Suprises:
Angus East and Kincardine: SNP 32% Con 31%
Every time Angus undergoes boundary changes it seems to turn into a Conservative target. In 1992, the SNP won the seat with a majority of 954 (2.01%) which under the boundary changes in 1997 became an SNP majority of 473 (1.07%). In 2001 the SNP won Angus by 3,611 (10.31%), boundary changes made it an SNP majority of 3,719 (9.47%) and now in 2010 Angus was an SNP majority of 3,282 (8.65%) and now (thanks to Kincardine) it becomes an SNP majority of 408 (0.98%). Is there any reason for Angus having Conservative areas being added to it?
Cupar and St. Andrews: Lib Dem 34% Lab 30%
The successor to Fife North East has now come into Labour's sights thanks to the addition of Glenrothes and therefore (if these proposals pass) I would expect Sir Menzies to stand down at the 2015 election (he would have been an MP by then for 28 years anyway)

[You kip if you want to...]

Based on those boundaries, and the last election results, what are the expected changes in seats?  Has anyone calculated that?  Or better still, produced a map?

Cupar and St. Andrews: Lib Dem 34% Lab 30%
The successor to Fife North East has now come into Labour's sights thanks to the addition of Glenrothes and therefore (if these proposals pass) I would expect Sir Menzies to stand down at the 2015 election (he would have been an MP by then for 28 years anyway)

Yeah, Ming'll stand down with a notional like that. Fife NE/Glenrothes-St. Andrews is obviously a University constituency as well...

[ObserverIE]

That Moray seat is a complete eyesore.

Charles Kennedy to fall on his sword and retire for Danny Alexander?

I'd have thought that putting Kennedy up as candidate would be the Lib Dems' only hope of holding the seat.

[You kip if you want to...]

That Moray seat is a complete eyesore.

Charles Kennedy to fall on his sword and retire for Danny Alexander?

I'd have thought that putting Kennedy up as candidate would be the Lib Dems' only hope of holding the seat.

It'd just be an interesting situation with Alexander being a cabinet minister.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Alexander will lose his seat no matter the boundaries, so why bother playing that sort of game?

[minionofmidas]

It's not as if the commission had much alternative in the Highlands anyways. They pretty much could either a) use the rule for an oversized-by-area, undersized-by-population constituency, cutting their already lower tolerance further, or b) draw exactly what they did (add the Black Isle/Cromarty Firth populated parts to the northern seat and the southwestern empty parts to the Inverness seat).
*hasn't read the report yet, maybe they did see a third alternative. I certainly didn't*

[Harry Hayfield]

Scotland Initial Proposal Notionals
Scottish Labour 896,463 votes (42.41%) winning 37 seats
Scottish National Party 421,467 votes (19.94%) winning 6 seats
Scottish Liberal Democrats 390,243 votes (18.46%) winning 8 seats
Scottish Conservatives and Unionists 354,356 votes (16.77%) winning 0 seats

GAINS
Dumfries: Labour WIN
East Dunbartonshire and Kilsyth: Labour WIN
Midlothian and Tweedale: Labour WIN

Potential Targets
Aberdeen North: SNP swing of 7% to gain
Argyll, Bute and Lochaber: Lab swing of 5.5% to gain, SNP swing of 7% to gain
Cupar and St. Andrews: Lab swing of 1.5% to gain
Deeside and Gordon: SNP swing of 7% to gain
Edinburgh West: Lab swing of 2.5% to gain
Angus East and Kincardine: Con swing of 0.5% to gain
Banff and Buchan: Con swing of 4.5% to gain
Dundee East and the Glens: Lab swing of 2.5% to gain

[minionofmidas]

Uh... Midlothian is a Labour seat at current. It doesn't change that much, really.

[Harry Hayfield]

Projection based on September average polls and initial estimates for England and Scotland
Labour 38% (+8% on 2010)
Conservatives 36% (-2% on 2010)
Liberal Democrats 11% (-13% on 2010)
Others 15% (+6% on 2010)

Labour 276 seats (+65 seats)
Conservatives 259 seats (-34 seats)
Scottish National Party 16 seats (+10 seats)
Green Party 2 seats (+2 seats)
Liberal Democrats 1 seat (-43 seats)
New Winning Line will be 301 seats, so far 554 seats calculated. 16 seats in Northern Ireland and 30 seats in Wales yet to be calculated

[afleitch]

I'm doing my notionals differently (I won't be doing them all until the seats are finalised)

What I've done is used the patterns of party vote (rather than raw numbers) based on the 2007 local election results and worked out what % of the party vote in each seat was cast in each ward or part ward.

So for example, I added up the Labour vote in the 2007 locals in the wards/part wards together that make up the Dumfries and Galloway Westminster constituency. This is of course lower in locals than at a GE, however you can say for example that in Ward 1 (good ward for Labour takin in Stranraer) 13.5% of the total Labour vote in the whole seat was cast there (if that makes sense) For split wards I've used the Commissions percentages.

I worked out that while 42% of the Dumfries and Galloway seat has been moved to Dumfries, that equates to 57.9% of the Labour vote. For the Conservatives it's 38.1%

So the remaining vote in the Galloway rump would be some 10,083 Labour votes and 10,214 Conservative votes.

For the Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock seat, 35% of the Labour vote is moved into Galloway and Carrick and 65.4% of the Conservative vote is moved in so that's 7,569 Labour votes and 7,668 Conservative votes.

So my notionals have Galloway 17,652 for Labour, 17,882 for the Conservatives. Conservative majority of 230

All maths of course but there you are