Welsh Assembly Elections 2011

[minionofmidas]

So will Law run for reelection as an indy, or not at all?

[minionofmidas]

Dylan Jones-Evans, Con     6290   30.38%

Cool name.

[minionofmidas]

Blaenau Gwent: arguably the most working class constituency in Wales, Blaenau Gwent covers, as the name indicates, the highest of the Monmouthshire Valleys and the eastern Breconshire Valleys.

? (Oh, also: you meant to type "in Britain", surely.)

And isn't Alun Davies a bit of a serial underperformer?

[minionofmidas]

That LD MLA being presumably a list MLA - from what region?

[minionofmidas]

Do you still have the list figures?

Yes, I do indeed have the regional list votes for 2007

As in, list vote results by constituency?

Cause I was looking for those just now and couldn't find them anywhere. I'd appreciate a link! Or a pm. (Actually, the only ones I *need* for doing what I wanted to do would be Rhondda, Cynon Valley, Brecon & Radnor, Montgomery, and Dwyfor Meirionydd.)

[minionofmidas]

I've found the midwelsh ones on this forum - only as percentages though, would prefer the actual votes.

[minionofmidas]

Actual votes? Check your email in a couple of minutes.

Edit: or, now, actually.

Diolch.

[minionofmidas]

We had a discussion someplace where I said the real issue with the Welsh election system is not the too low number of top-up seats versus direct seats, but the number of top-up seats per list.

I just wanted to test that by seeing what happens with just three constituencies - for reasons of "I was lazy and this was quick and looks reasonably non-ridic" I drew Glamorgan W & Gwent (with S Glamorgan and Pontypridd), Glamorgan E & Dyfed for 14+7 top-up and North Wales & Powys for 12+6.

The results are indeed... interesting.

Labour 24 (-2) Con 15 (+3) PC 11 (-4) LD 7 (+1) BNP 2 (+2) Law 1 (0)

Under the current system the Tories came second in both list and constituency votes, but still received fewer seats than Plaid. My regions happened (not by design) to hypercorrect that - Plaid missed out on the next seat by a couple of votes in both southern constituencies. Labour aren't getting any list seats anymore. They still get to keep some overhang in the south (in the north they happened to win as many direct seats as they were due anyhow). BNP narrowly got in, UKIP and Greens narrowly stayed out with not so many fewer votes.

[minionofmidas]

I'm not sure how Glamorgan West & Gwent would look anything other than utterly ridiculous

What happens if you just go South Wales, the Rest of Wales, for regions?

Oh gee, east and west again.

South Wales as Gwent & Glamorgan? I'll get to it.

[minionofmidas]

That makes 23 vs 17 constituencies though... might want to redo it later with Llanelli in the southern seat to make it 24 vs 16 with 12 vs 8 top-up seats.

South
Llafur 19+0, Con 2+3, Plaid 0+4, LD 1+2, BNP 0+1, UKIP 0+1, Law 1+0, Greens 0 or 0+1 depending on whether there be 11 or 12 top-up seats
North
Plaid 7+0, Con 3+3 or 3+4 depending on whether there be 8 or 9 top-up seats, Llafur 5+1, LD 2+1, BNP 0+1, UKIP 0+1, Greens 0+1

Total Llafur 25, Con 11 or 12, Plaid 11, LD 6, BNP 2, UKIP 2, Greens 1 or 2, Law 1.
Though with just two regional lists, you might (almost) just as well go the whole hog and do national pr.

[minionofmidas]

Wales has a rather higher threshold than Scotland, precisely because the threshold is a function of the number of top-up seats per region. Which, in Scotland, is 7.
If UKIP or BNP had polled at their Welsh rates of support in Scotland in 2007, they would be represented.
On a side note, there wouldn't have been a "rainbow" majority with these figures.

[minionofmidas]

There's a big bastard error in the earlier three-region calculation. Gonna correct that later on.

Here's the 24+12 - 16+8 (ie Llanelli in the South) calculation. Llanelli's one of Labour's biggest vote getters to not result in a direct seat win, so the result of transferring it to the region with Labour overhang is sort of predictable.

South
Lab 19+0 Con 2+3 PC 1+4 LD 1+2 BNP 0+1 UKIP 0+1 Green 0+1 Law 1+0
North
PC 6+1 Con 3+4 Lab 5+0 LD 2+1 UKIP 0+1 BNP 0+1
Total
Labour 24 Con 12 PC 12 LD 6 BNP 2 UKIP 2 Green 1 Law 1

[minionofmidas]

Argh. Seems I had the post eaten. Anyhow, corrected the error and it comes out 13 Con, 13 PC with the three regions.

[minionofmidas]

Pretty maps are supinely beautiful!