Let the great boundary rejig commence

[YL]

Some minor tweaks plus redid the rediculous Dundee map - now with one constituency holding the bulk of the city (named "Dundee West") and a donut ("Angus West & East Perthshire" despite including parts of Dundee). No good write-up of why the changes.

I think "Dundee West" should just be "Dundee": it's the city minus a few eastern fringe areas, not the western part of the city.  The other one is one of those constituencies that there's never going to be a good name for, but I don't like names with two compass points so how about "Broughty Ferry, Kirriemuir and Scone"?  A couple of pronunciation traps for the English there.

[YL]

Well, based on what I've looked at so far (mostly my own region) I think it's better, but it's not good enough to change my mind that the Lib Dems are right to vote against it.

Oddly, they have split a single ward, in Gloucester.  But in north Cheshire, and around the big cities, they've continued to propose messy constituencies whose only real rationale is to avoid splitting wards.  In Yorkshire, perhaps the worst is the bizarrely named "Leeds Metropolitan and Ossett"; it's not as bad as the initial proposals' "Leeds North West and Nidderdale", but that really isn't saying much.

[YL]

Bye bye Mersey Banks (thank god).

Not really.  It now only contains one bank, but it's still an abomination.

The Norn Iron proposals are OK, I think.  I'm slightly surprised they didn't rename "Glenshane", and not surprised that they didn't rename "Strangford" though they really should have done.

[YL]

Bye bye Mersey Banks (thank god).

Not really.  It now only contains one bank, but it's still an abomination.

Have they at least undone the actually worst bit of it - the bizarre split of Ellesmere Port?

No.  The only differences are that the new version includes Heath ward in west Runcorn and doesn't include Hale and Ditton wards on the Lancashire bank.

And here is Leeds Metropolitan and Ossett.  I'm trying to work out what sort of animal it looks like.

[YL]

I wonder what, if anything, will be salvaged from the whole expensive process?

Do you think there's anything worth salvaging?

I made a fairly brief comment saying that they should have split wards in Yorkshire.  They won't take any notice.

Is Spelthorne really that bad (compared with Mersey Banks & Weaver, Leeds Metropolitan & Ossett, etc.)?

[YL]

Was "Leeds Metropolitan & Osset" really the best name they could think of?

I think a ridiculous name is entirely appropriate for such a constituency.

[YL]

The House of Lords has voted to delay the review until 2018.  Given the parliamentary arithmetic, the Commons is likely to follow.  If it does, then presumably this review is dead: if the legislation isn't amended, then there'll be another review on these rules after the next election with December 2015 electorate figures.

[YL]

And may all the Labour supporters who've allowed this disgrace to happen rot, for all I care.

I'm bewildered - not even angry anymore - that the party of the working man and Chartists have supported this amendment, a constitutional disgrace beyond all measure.

Labour now support, without justification at all, unequal constituencies, meaning the vote of "One Nation Britain" is unequal. Laughable, spiteful, bitter, shallow, backwards looking idiocy of the lowest order.

Um... your party voted with Labour.

(And of course another way of thinking about it is that they don't support this or this.)

[YL]

Sigh. I still think that the Commons could easily have been culled without changing the current rules; just reducing the Commons to 550 or 600 seats without crossing county boundaries and the Tories generally ensuring at reviews stage that we have more donuts than cakes with respect to urban/suburban splits. I also don't see why reviews can't take place between parliaments, there's computers to help with this sort of thing.

I haven't been convinced by the need to reduce the size of the Commons, not that I'm particularly convinced that it needs to be 650 either.  (I find the size of the payroll vote more concerning than the number of MPs, actually.)

I think the Tories were right to move, effectively, to a single national quota, and yes I don't think it was acceptable that the last review took six years (and because of the timing of its completion was ten years out of date when first used).  But I don't think the 5% rule was necessary (a wider tolerance in cases where it means that other criteria such as local government boundaries are better followed shouldn't create a bias one way or the other) and I certainly think that given its existence the BCE should have been more prepared to split large wards (as the other Commissions did) which is the real reason, not the shape of the Wirral, for the two seats I mentioned earlier (and others I could mention).

[YL]

I think the Tories were right to move, effectively, to a single national quota, and yes I don't think it was acceptable that the last review took six years (and because of the timing of its completion was ten years out of date when first used).  But I don't think the 5% rule was necessary (a wider tolerance in cases where it means that other criteria such as local government boundaries are better followed shouldn't create a bias one way or the other) and I certainly think that given its existence the BCE should have been more prepared to split large wards (as the other Commissions did) which is the real reason, not the shape of the Wirral, for the two seats I mentioned earlier (and others I could mention).

You're just annoyed over Yarksher, aren't you? I must confess it irked me until I cracked the damn thing, and from there it was a piece of cake. As a result, Batley, Dewsbury, Wakefield and the Calder Valley were put back together - now really, what's the problem? My only whine would be the superfluous "and Denby Dale" in Colne Valley.

The big cities, and especially the random areas tacked on to their constituencies (like Ossett, certain wards in Barnsley, especially Kingstone, and Horsforth) to make the numbers fit.  Both Leeds and Sheffield could have been done within their boundaries with the odd split ward (as Glasgow and Edinburgh were) and Bradford just needed to lose Queensbury.

[YL]

Parliament postpones boundary review until 2018.

334-292, majority of 42.
At least 4 Tory rebels. The usual suspects: Davis, Davies, Shepherd, Baron.

Given the potential confusion about Davises and Davieses, it should be clarified that Philip Davies (Shipley) and David Davis (Haltemprice & Howden) voted with Labour and the Lib Dems, while Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) abstained.  David Davies (Monmouth) voted with the other Tories.  The Cornish Tories all voted for Devonwall.

Naomi Long (Alliance, East Belfast) voted with the Tories; she would have very much been a benificiary of the proposals.  The Plaid, SNP and SDLP MPs, and most of the DUP MPs voted with Labour and the Lib Dems; so did George Galloway, Caroline Lucas, Sylvia Hermon and Eric Joyce.