Let the great boundary rejig commence

[YL]

An organisation called Democratic Audit has produced a constituency map for the whole UK under the new rules:
http://www.democraticaudit.com/the-uks-new-political-map

(This was covered in the media a few weeks ago but they've only just completed putting the details up.)

Some are good, some are bad, some are hilariously awful (see "Firth of Tay").

NB the authors are known Labour supporters.

[YL]

Overall I'd say better than some other attempts, but there are some constituencies which... um... yeah. Take the one I'd be living in; Gwynedd & Machynlleth. Which would stretch from Y Felinheli to just west of Newtown.

Out of interest, what would be a better plan there (within the rules)?  Conwy Valley around Llanrwst and Betws-y-Coed instead of the Powys bit (if that works)?

[YL]

Overall I'd say better than some other attempts, but there are some constituencies which... um... yeah. Take the one I'd be living in; Gwynedd & Machynlleth. Which would stretch from Y Felinheli to just west of Newtown.

Out of interest, what would be a better plan there (within the rules)?  Conwy Valley around Llanrwst and Betws-y-Coed instead of the Powys bit (if that works)?

I've not checked the figures yet (keep meaning to, but, you know) but I suspect the best solution might be to go for a further (and more drastic) split of Meirionnydd.

The Anglesey and Gwynedd council areas have just over 10,000 too few electors between them for two constituencies.  Presumably two constituencies will be formed which are based in those areas, so between them they have to collect some electorate from neighbouring areas.  Democratic Audit use parts of Conwy to boost the Anglesey/Bangor seat, and parts of Powys to boost the Caernarfon/Llŷn/Meirionnydd one.  So are you basically suggesting that part of Meirionnydd is left out of the latter (meaning it doesn't spread so far south) and where would it extend to instead?

[YL]

I've no idea because I've not looked over the figures (I should do though. Have you a link?).

http://www.bcomm-wales.gov.uk/2013_review_e.htm
has a link to an Excel file with the relevant electorates.

[YL]

I've only looked at Yorkshire so far, and not that closely, but it looks quite bad.  They seem to have put too much weight on avoiding ward-splitting and hence gone for some seats that you'd never draw for any other reason, hence the multiple crossings of the West/North Yorks border to cope with the big wards in Leeds.

In South Yorkshire, while I think they ought to be prepared to split wards (and I don't like the new rules anyway), I also think they could have done better even without doing so.  Clegg's new seat (assuming he jumps north rather than south if these are the final proposals) is a case in point.

[YL]

Northern Ireland's proposals are out. Quite sensible geographically. Demographically though...

from Nicholas Whyte's site http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1816829.html.

Unnecessary fiddling with Newry/Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann, all of which are already within the quota and don't need to be changed.

I'd go with a different set of wards to add to Fermanagh/South Tyrone, and "Mid Ulster" is a better name than "Mid Tyrone".

The one really daft seat is Mid Antrim. Ballymena has much better communication links with Antrim town to its south than to Larne. East Antrim could largely be left intact with the addition of an area around Ballyclare, and with the rural area to the south of Antrim town being added to Lagan Valley instead.

In Belfast, the Lagan might make a more natural boundary between the new South East and South West, with attendant shuffling around of wards in Castlereagh and Lisburn.

The casualties will be the SDLP in Belfast South and the DUP in the old East L'Derry (once you take out Coleraine town and points east you remove the Unionist majority in the seat).

Compared with the monstrosities in England, where it actually looks to me as if the Commission didn't like the new rules and decided to show what was wrong with them, Northern Ireland has got off fairly lightly.

[YL]

Looking at all the regions now, I think some will be completely changed, not a single proposal will remain

There are some regions where I suspect the changes will be only minimal or not changed at all - I'm going to predict that Eastern England, East Midlands and North East England are falling in this last category.

I think a few proposals in Yorkshire and the Humber will survive: the Doncaster seats, Scarborough & Whitby, perhaps Rother Valley and the East Riding/N Lincs/NE Lincs proposals (though I'm not sure about some of the names there).  Elsewhere little deserves to survive (there are a few individual seats which are OK but they're often surrounded by ones which are not) though I fear it may if they don't bite the ward splitting bullet.

[YL]

The first of the hearings on the proposals started today, in Manchester.  Some details have seeped out, but as yet I haven't seen any of the parties' counterproposals in full.  It does seem that Labour and the Tories have both decided against ward splitting and presumably as a result have created their own monstrosities in the same area where the Commission came up with "Mersey Banks".

[YL]

Basically the Tory proposal sorts out some of the more egregious problems of the prov recs without splitting a ward, the Lib Dem proposal is a bit more radical and involves splitting two wards, and the Labour proposal doesn't even try to hide that it's a gerrymander.

Proposing an obvious gerrymander seems a bit silly given the UK system where the rules generally suggest that such things should be ignored; any idea what they're playing at?

The first Yorkshire hearing is on Thursday; I'll be interested to see what gets put forward (though as I can't make the hearings I don't know when I'll find out).

[YL]

The inevitable result of a more politicised procedure is a more politicised procedure.

I don't like what the Tories did either, but I don't think it justifies proposing silly gerrymanders.  [NB the only example I've actually seen is "North West Cheshire", which is truly, truly, horrible.  But maybe things elsewhere aren't as bad as is being made out.]

Plus proposing silly gerrymanders seems a good way of having your ideas rejected, which may well mean more subtle gerrymanders from the other parties being accepted.

[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).

[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.

[YL]

Labour's full counterproposal for Lancashire and Cheshire has now been posted by "dadge" on
http://ukelect.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/labour-counterproposals-north-west-england/

It's not quite as bad as some people had been making out, but there are some pretty bad seats.  The northern part of the region generally looks better than the southern.

[YL]

And the LibDems on 1 seat? Really though? Even i'm not that optimistic.

I'm a bit surprised it's that low, but the Lib Dems often appear to do badly out of notional results, because areas added to existing Lib Dem seats often haven't been a focus of Lib Dem campaigning and haven't had personal votes for the Lib Dem MPs.  Kendal & Penrith is an obvious example in the initial proposals: that seat is probably considerably safer for the Lib Dems (or at least for Tim Farron) than notional results suggest.  Or the seat I get put into by the proposals (and you-know-who's), Sheffield West & Penistone: the Lib Dems have no organisation and no recent electoral record in Penistone West, but you bet that if that seat does survive the consultation they'll try to get organised there.

Also, uniform national swing is an even dodgier assumption when dealing with Lib Dems (and I doubt this'll change even with the Coalition) than with other parties.  So I doubt the Lib Dems would actually go down to 1 seat in an election fought on these boundaries and with those vote share changes.

[YL]

What the polls seem to be saying is Con -2% on the general (in essence virtually unchanged), Labour are +9% and the Liberal Democrats -13%. The majority of that -15% is from Lib Dem to Lab, but the SNP, UKIP and Greens are also up (SNP +2%, Green +2%, UKIP +1%) with the BNP and the Others -1%. This suggests to me that in Lib Dem seats with a majority of less than 22%, the Lib Dems will lose the seat. In 2010, there were only eight Lib Dems elected with a majority of more than 22% (Bath, Fife North East, North Norfolk, Orkney, Ross, Hallam, Westmorland and Yeovil) and of those eight only Bath, North Norfolk, Orkney, Yeovil remain in place and only Orkney is forecast to remain Lib Dem on a national uniform swing.

Surely they're more than 11% ahead of the Conservatives and 22% ahead of Labour in the other three at least? (11% being the required lead given that the Conservatives are down -2%.)

I know that they're facing a combination of massive unpopularity in Scotland and severe disruption to most of their safer seats in England, but 1 seat being left is overstating it for the moment.

On Anthony Wells's figures and with those vote share changes as a uniform national swing
Kendal & Penrith goes Tory (LD notionally 9.3% ahead of Con) and Sheffield West & Penistone just goes Labour (Labour are notionally third but are 21% behind).

On the other hand, Bath, Yeovil and North Norfolk would all stay LD (they're notionally over 20% ahead of Con and Lab are nowhere).  Harry's also missing Bristol West where Wells has them notionally 24% ahead of Labour, and there are a few more with leads over Con in the teens and Labour nowhere.

For Scotland, Aidan Thomson has posted some notional figures on Vote UK.  Cupar & St Andrews is a disaster for the Lib Dems, with Ming's majority cut to 3.3% notionally (over Labour), but the LD lead is 24.5% in Inverness & Skye (over Labour; the SNP are slightly further back).  The LDs also have decent leads in Caithness et al and Deeside & Gordon.

There are a lot of caveats needed here, of course.

[YL]

Well, I wouldn't say that they should be expected: uniform national swing is a very crude tool when dealing with the Lib Dems.  Also I think you've missed a couple which Labour could win from third on that swing (one of which I already mentioned).

What's your methodology for predicting SNP gains in Scotland?

[YL]

Labour's full counterproposal for Lancashire and Cheshire has now been posted by "dadge" on
http://ukelect.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/labour-counterproposals-north-west-england/

And now he has the Tory proposals up too:
http://ukelect.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/conservative-counterproposals-north-west-england/

Featuring more ways to make a horrible mess of Cheshire.

[YL]

I read somewhere that had the new boundaries been used in the 2010 election, Caroline Lucas wouldn't have gotten her seat. 

From what I understand, she probably would have won Brighton Pavilion & Hove had it existed.  The notional figures will say otherwise (as Harry said, Anthony Wells has it with a Labour majority of 1860, with the Greens second) but boundaries affect voting behaviour (personal votes, and people voting for parties when they have a chance of winning but not otherwise) and I would think that in this case they would have enough of an effect to turn it Green.

(Aren't the proposed names "Brighton Pavilion and Hove" and "Brighton and Hove North" confusing?)

[YL]

Newport West & Sirhowy Valley

That looks horrendous.

[YL]

Though I wonder why they moved that one Carmarthenshire ward into Ceredigion & Preseli. And clearly "South & West Pembrokeshire" should be just named "Pembroke"?

EDIT: That's Newcastle Emlyn. It does have links to the north, and moving it improves population equality, but it's still an unnecessary split of local government boundaries. Keeping it in Carmarthen does not make that too large; removing it from Ceredigion makes that too small but it could easily have taken Llanrhian and optionally Saint David's as well from Pembroke instead without that in turn becoming too small.

It's odd, because elsewhere they're often very keen on saying that they're protecting local government boundaries, and as you say it's unnecessary.

Aberavon & Ogmore: would it make more sense to include the coastal parts of Bridgend district with Port Talbot, or do the numbers not work out very well?

Glyndwr & North Powys: this does indeed look dreadful, but I fear that it's virtually impossible to avoid something dreadful with Powys.  And has it been partly named after a district which no longer exists, or is there some other reason for the name?

[YL]

And for a very local gripe: they've literally drawn a random line between the communities that sprung up around Dinorwic. Which is like dousing the idea of 'community of interest' with petrol and setting it alight. Not the worst thing (not even close) to come out of this process, even for Wales, but I'm still very much not happy.

The text in their report says

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... but Menai ac Ynys Môn certainly looks to me as if it contains divisions south of Bangor.

Is there a better solution within the electorate rules?

[YL]

I was thinking West Flintshire too.  The old constituency of that name was once represented by Sir Anthony Meyer of 1989 stalking horse fame.

[YL]

Llanfairfechan can go into NWC (which should not be called that, and neither should "Dee Estuary" be called that, as Prestatyn and Rhyl are on the North Wales Coast and not the Dee Estuary as far as I'm concerned. Both seats should very much be drawn, however.) The two remaining rural Conwy Valley wards can go into Gwynedd. Ynys Mon & Bangor (as I would have named it) then needs to be brought up to population, and Llanberis seems like the obvious choice.

Looks good to me.

[YL]

This is my proposal, in full. I am leaving it here for 48 hours minimum to address any issues before emailing it to the Commission. Because yes, I will. I didn't for Northern Ireland because I approve of the proposal. I didn't for Scotland because given all those split wards, I lacked the necessary data to submit alternatives to the areas I disapproved of. I didn't for England because it's such an incredible mess that I literally didn't know where to start; it's as bad as Torie's first draft of Arizona.

You could always submit something for the later stages in England (preferably to support my submission ).

[YL]

Tinkering a bit in that area to see whether it's possible to produce something which at least looks better on a map:

Wrexham Maelor has plenty of electorate to spare.  The 3,199 electors of Ruabon could be transferred from it to G&NP (hereafter referred to as the monster), reducing WM to 75,154 (so indeed a bit more territory could in principle be transferred).  That at least gives the monster a more coherent-looking element in Wrexham borough.

Adding Ruabon takes the monster to 77,753, which is big enough to start thinking about whether it can be trimmed down to make it slightly less monstrous.  Unfortunately I can't see how trimming it in Montgomeryshire is actually going to improve it, but it could lose the three Conwy wards (3,821); Gwynedd has room for all of them, and at least around Pentrefoelas that doesn't seem like such a bad idea (though adding all of them would make Gwynedd geographically very large), or Llansannan could go into Conwy if that makes more sense.  That would at least mean it only covered parts of three council areas rather than four.

I'd also prefer a different name.  Berwyn?  Denbigh and Welshpool?

To really deal with the problem of the virtually disconnected Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire components, I think you'd have to take a different approach to Powys, which would have knock-on effects in both the north and the south.  The electorates of Alyn & Deeside and what I'd call West Flintshire are both near the upper limit, so in principle the former could lose some territory to Wrexham, compensated if necessary from the latter.  Then more of Wrexham borough could be transferred to the monster, and you then might have enough electorate to remove the Montgomeryshire element (which is around 20,000 electors) altogether.  Once you've done that, the Powys seat is going to be too big, so some areas in Brecknockshire will need to go into South Wales constituencies...