Let the great boundary rejig commence

[afleitch]

STV anyone?

[afleitch]

But is it to be applauded? They've managed to get the numbers to work out right, sure. But this isn't a psephological-wank exercise of the sort that we enjoy a fair bit here, it's the real thing.

Of course given the rules and all that we really shouldn't be terribly surprised by any of this. Even if we all are.

I think that's what will hurt them. They did it in Scotland; got all the numbers right, patted themselves on the back and were rightfully shafted by the Commissioner who recommended 80% of it was thrown out. They will have to justify why they choose not to split any wards and on what basis they did so especially when set against the other criteria. I don't think they will be able to justify it making this a wasted exercise.

[afleitch]

Great, and now the website has crashed.

[afleitch]

Still down for me. There's always the morning

[afleitch]

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

[afleitch]

Map of boundaries from Guardian datablog: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/sep/13/boundary-changes-constituency-map

Nifty map. Not so sure of the figures though.

[afleitch]

Remind me never to read the Guardian comment pages on such things ever again.

[afleitch]

Remind me never to read the Guardian comment pages on such things ever again.

It's a thing of twisted beauty, is it not? I especially love the bits when people start randomly screaming about immigrants.

It's the CONSPIRACEE brigade that get me. Apparently it was Cameron who chose to count only registered voters rather than it being anything to do with the Representation of the People Act several generations ago. Or it's the 'bankers'; they even seem to get the blame for crap telly.

The biggest shock however was stumbling across a familiar face in the comments section

[afleitch]

Oh, by their standards that stuff is pretty tame... it's a little bit embarrassing though. There are enough decent lefty arguments against this whole thing without needed to resort to bizarre and rambling conspiracy theories.

Like this gem from Emily Thornberry MP

"In my constituency the problems are stark. Nearly 80,000 adults live in Islington South and Finsbury – but when the new boundaries were drawn up fewer than 67,000 "counted". Because the 8,000 Europeans who live in Islington can't vote in general elections, they were ignored. Many who come from outside the Commonwealth or aren't on the electoral register weren't counted either. The government shouldn't pretend these people don't need an MP, and they deserve to be counted as my constituents."

[afleitch]

UKPollingreport has done a Rawlings and Thrasher style notional calculation

Eastern CON -1 LAB-1 LIB 0
South West CON 0 LAB 0 LIB -2
South East CON +1 LAB 0 LIB-1 GRN-1
London CON +1 LAB-5 LIB-1
East Midlands CON 0, LAB-2 LIB 0
West Midlands CON -1, LAB -4 LIB 0
North West CON -3, LAB -2, LIB -2
North East CON -1, LAB -1, LIB -1
Yorkshire and Humber CON -1, LAB -3, LIB 0

Total CON -5
        LAB -18
        LIB - 7
        GRN -1


The Boundary Commission for Scotland appears has 'given away' the council groupings used by annoucing their public hearing dates.

[afleitch]

Ah really? What info have they given?

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

[afleitch]

Ah really? What info have they given?

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

As these groupings don't make much sense otherwise... presumably, yeah.

Looking at the quota's though, I'm thinking there may be more to it. The Highlands/Grampian grouping hs a quota of 7.51, which whether it's 7 or 8 seats ends up above or below quota.

[afleitch]

Click to enlarge. A ward map of Scotland with electorates in thousands. Doesn't included cities. Good for drafting your own proposals

[afleitch]

This is what I have for Scotland so far (if it was up to me)

I'm not being kind to the Coalition mind I've abolished two Lib Dem held seats and the lone Tory seat. What I've tried to do is to respect links and I think I've managed to avoid turning Lanarkshire into a sh-thole (no jokes please ) in part by linking East Kilbride with Rutherglen. Hamilton isn't split as it's paired up with Blantyre/Cambuslang. There's a big rural (but solid Labour) southern Lanarkshire seat. Motherwell is retained. Coatbridge is linked with Bellshill and Airdrie with Cumbernauld. Falkirk isn't split. Neither is Stirling.

The Borders makes sense. Even Dumfries I think looks sensible. I have a large seat that crosses Ayrshire and Galloway but again it's not unreasonable. I accidently re-created Ayr which would be a far better Tory target. So yeah; bit of fun really.

[afleitch]

The Dumfries seat is excellent, actually. Galloway-Carrick-Cumnock isn't bad either.

I thought that linkage made more sense than the link with Lanarkshire and the Borders. It would essentially consolidate Labour's position there but price worth paying.

Labour aren't going to be the big loosers up here; however the cake is cut, because Labour's Westminster vote is so unform (in the same way that the SNP's vote is at Holyrood ) I always loose Lib Dem seats and the lone Tory seat.

Fife wasn't as difficult as I thought. However no other arrangement was satisfactory without splitting the main towns or breaching the council boundaries more than once.

If Argyll doesn't work as I've drawn it, it can be easily re-arranged loosing the Highlands part with an adjustment booting Milngavie into the Glasgow pool.

With Edinburgh I hope I have the numbers to have a Linlithgow seat stretching into Queensferry and part of Corstorphine in the manner in which the Lothian seats did from 1983-1997 and have a large Livingston seat allowing the bulk of Edinburgh to be carved into 4 neat seats.

Of course get one bit wrong and it all goes pearshaped.

[afleitch]

Click to enlarge. A ward map of Scotland with electorates in thousands. Doesn't included cities. Good for drafting your own proposals

I'm clicking but nothing happens. :-(

Adrian
ukelect.wordpress.com

Try right clicking and copying the image then pasting it, or saving the image.

[afleitch]

Scotland out Thursday. Hopefully should get some rumours tomorrow.

[afleitch]

Edinburgh constituencies have been leaked. 4 self contained seats within the city (bang goes my idea of linking in with West Lothian)

Edinburgh South West
Edinburgh East
Edinburgh West
Edinburgh Central and Leith

The 'abolished' seat is Edinburgh South, though in reality it's Edinburgh East that has been chopped. Looking at Edinburgh West, it's going to help the Lib Dems immensely (in a...cough...normal year) as it's taking in Stockbridge, Inverleith and Broughton, all 'not Labour' voting areas (Tories at local, Lib Dems at General, SNP at Holyrood)

Edinburgh South West post Darling (should he step down) looks interesting; it's taking in Grange, Morningside and Fairmilehead.

The rest of the old Edinburgh South seat is taking in Craigmillar, Duddingston and Milton and retaining the student hub.

[afleitch]

So yeah; not sure how the parties react.

A retained Edinburgh South reaching even a smidgeon north or west could have made it a national Lib Dem gain so I have a feeling they will push for that but in doing so they screw up the configuration elsewhere. Labour will no doubt call for Broughton/Stockbridge etc to be moved into Central and Leith with Granton and Trinity moved into West. This takes 'not Labour' territory into Central and Leith and puts Labour territory into West. For that reason I think the Lib Dems will focus on retaining Edinburgh West as drawn with the Tories pushing for retaining Edinburgh South West as drawn as should Darling step down, and Lib Dem voters transfer their allegiance to the Tories it's far better territory for them; my rough estimate is that Darling's majority is halved.

What concerns me is that all 4 seats are at the very upper limit of electorate; it would have made sense to pursue a West Lothian link now, as the next review would see smaller changes.

[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...

[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!"

[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.

[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.