Let the great boundary rejig commence

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

I put my submission in twice by two different methods, so I wonder whether it got counted twice.  The acknowledgement email I got gave me a reference number BCE/IP/023292, so there probably were about that number of submissions overall.

But you don't have to wait until tomorrow to read what I wrote.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Labour counter-proposal for northern Greater Manchester:

BOLTON SOUTH: as per Commission's proposals.
BOLTON WEST: existing constituency plus Halliwell.
Not too bad so far.

BURY CENTRAL AND HEYWOOD: Church, East, Moorside, Redvales, Hopwood Hall, Norden, N Heywood, W Heywood, W Middleton
This will go down in Bury like a cup of cold sick.  Also, why the split of Middleton?  It's certainly not natural.  Church ward needs to be kept with Elton - Church only has half a road link with the rest of this seat.

BURY SOUTH: unchanged.
ROCHDALE: unchanged.
That's more like it.

ROSSENDALE AND RAMSBOTTOM: Elton, N Manor, Rammy, Rossendale borough.
OK, except for the fact that Elton is part of Bury and, again, only has half a road link with the rest of this seat.  Why not put Tottington here?

BOLTON NORTH AND DARRWEN: Earcroft, Marsh House, N Turton, Sudell, Sunnyhurst, Whitehall, Astley Bridge, Bradshaw, Bromley Cross, Crompton, Tonge wi' t' Hoff, Totty.

[vomiting smiley here]

This is so bad it defies explanation.  I could probably write pages and pages on why it's bad.  In fact, I probably will do.

Earcroft, Sunnyhurst, Sudell, Marsh House, Whitehall: Darwen town.  Nestled in a deep north-facing valley in the West Pennine Moors.  An adjunct to Blackburn with Blackburn postcodes, Blackburn telephone numbers and Blackburn Rovers fans.  Has about a dozen surnames.  Local accent pronounces R's.

N Turton, Bromley Cross, Bradshaw: Turton urban district as was.  Has been in a Darwen seat before.  Edgworth, Chapeltown, Egerton, Dunscar, Bromley Cross, Bradshaw, Harwood.  Transitions from wild and beautiful moorland at the top to middle-class Bolton suburbia at the bottom.  Bolton postcodes and telephone numbers.  Bolton Wanderers and Man City fans.  R's not pronounced.  Two main links with Darwen: the single track railway line under the top with one train an hour, the A666 road over the top which lives up to its devilish number with an appaling fatal accident record.  That's except if you live in Edgworth, in which case you need to take the Roman Road, which probably hasn't been resurfaced since the Coronation.  Note I didn't say which Coronation.

Tottington: over a hill from the rest of the constituency.  Middle-class adjunct to Bury and has never previously been out of a Bury seat.  Bolton telephone numbers, Bury postcodes.  Bury and Man City fans.  Road links to Bury and Ramsbottom good, to Bolton indirect, to Darwen appalling to non-existent.  On the Irwell Valley side of the hill and should be in a seat to match.

Astley Bridge, Crompton, Tonge with The Haulgh: part of Bolton proper.  Astley Bridge is middle-class, Tonge with The Hoff is white working-class and very much inner Bolton, Crompton is Asian and very much inner Bolton including part of the town centre.  Bolton telephone numbers and postcodes, Bolton Wanderers fans.  R's not pronounced.

What I'm trying to get at here is that Bolton and Darwen are two very different towns, culturally, physically - even the dialect is different - which shouldn't be in the same constituency at all.  And Tottington should never have got anywhere near this seat in the first place.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

You know, since nobody is going to protest against Blackburn staying whole, and all other alternatives including the commission's own are clearly even worse, Bolton N & Darwen is fairly likely going to come to pass.

Though that exact set of wards, maybe not.

Disagree for similar reasons to doktorb.  Bolton North and Darwen isn't even the craziest seat in the Labour counter-proposal (although it's up there).

For mathematical reasons there needs to be at least one seat crossing the Lancashire/Greater Manchester boundary.  The Commission have tied themselves in knots by trying to put it in the Whitworth area.  This isn't an unreasonable place to put a cross-county seat but the knock-on effects are tremendous (particularly because the two current Rochdale seats are pretty good and already within tolerance).  The Tories are supporting this - given the knock-on effects I can only assume they are supporting this for partisan reasons.

Labour, the Lib Dems and myself have all gone for a cross-county seat in the upper Irwell valley (Rossendale and Ramsbottom).  I haven't yet read the Lib Dem counterproposal in detail but I seem to recall that doktorb and his colleagues haven't gone for any other cross-county seats.

I should probably critique the other two parties' counterproposals for northern Greater Manchester for the sake of balance.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Good to see you back posting on politics, dok.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

What would be necessary, and indeed sort of logical, but is not going to happen because that is not the way laws work, is for the Commissions to be given new, nonpartisan procedures which to use in order to start from scratch with.
Since the Commissions will be forced to bumble on incompetently, I fully expect Clegg to climb down and meekly enact the gerrymander in the end.

The proposals are not gerrymandering.

Then, I suppose you can write a defense of Mersey Banks.

The fact that Mersey Banks is indefensible doesn't contradict dok's point.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

One way to fix the bill may be to establish regional boundary commissions before the next review.

I don't see how that would improve matters to be honest - we already have four regional boundary commissions.  It would add an extra dimension of "the South West boundary commission wouldn't have done that so we don't want the North West boundary commission to do that".

The way to solve the whole problem once and for all is, of course, to pay doktorb and me to do it

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

The thing I don't understand about Lower Darwen is - yes, alright it was historically part of Darwen, but about fifteen years ago they went and built a motorway between Darwen and Lower Darwen.  When they set up Darwen Town Council about a decade ago they stopped the boundary at the motorway, so Lower Darwen isn't actually covered by the town council.

I'm aware of the argument that sometimes you can have communities divided by a motorway working pretty well as a unit nonetheless (see the Dickie Bird estate in Bury for an example), but I'm not sure that works here.  I think Lower Darreners just don't want to be associated with Blackburrn in the same way I didn't want Bolton associated with Darreners.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

I also suggested a change in the Accrington area, although more radical; swap Baxenden and Spring Hill for Altham and Clayton-le-Moors.  This doesn't resolve the split of Accrington but does make the Rossendale and Oswaltwistle seat much more sensibly shaped.

Bury South and Crumpsall makes an awful lot of sense, much more so than it looks.  There are good community links between Crumpsall and Prestwich.

Spelthorne: Poyle (part of the Colnbrook with Poyle ward transferred into Spelthorne) was part of Spelthorne district until 1995, and before then part of Staines UD.  You can't really describe moving Poyle back into Spelthorne as ridiculous.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Dok, you were warned.