2010 constituency boundaries.

[afleitch]

Just a shout to..

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/

They have started work on the effects of the changes- Wales has been completed with

LAB: 30
LIB: 4
PC: 2 (!)
CON: 3
IND: 1

[Rural Radical]

Very interesting.

Where did they get the info for the new arfon seat. As the results by ward arent published are they?

For the record I think that thwe Lib Dems will Hold Ceredigion long term especially if theOrange Book gang get their way.

[afleitch]

Where did they get the info for the new arfon seat. As the results by ward arent published are they?

I was trying to work that out too. I think they use a very basic system. So if one constituency is enlarged by taking 5% of the possible vote from another constituency, then they take 5% of the votesof each party from that constituency and add it to the enlarged constituency. I may be completely wrong though.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Unless they're fools, they'll be using local election results as a base. Which is a problem in North Wales due to all the independent candidates of every ideological flavour in the rainbow...

[Rural Radical]

Where did they get the info for the new arfon seat. As the results by ward arent published are they?

I was trying to work that out too. I think they use a very basic system. So if one constituency is enlarged by taking 5% of the possible vote from another constituency, then they take 5% of the votesof each party from that constituency and add it to the enlarged constituency. I may be completely wrong though.

I thought that.  If you look at Arfon it will probably be a safe Labour seat with Caernarfon and Bangor strong Labour Towns witha few Working Class villages (similar to the valleys) in between. On the other Hand I can see Aberconwy being a marginal Tory seat with the Labour vote being concentrated in Llandudno and to a lesser extent Conwy. The other seat in the Northwest (Merrionedd) will be very safe for PC especially with the Lleyn peninsula added to it.
Finally Yns Mon will stay Labour as long as the candidate is an incumbent (Every time an MP retires it changes).

[Harry Hayfield]

Latest Calculations

Lab was 356 now 348
Con was 198 now 214
LDm was 62 now 59
Others was 30 now 29
Lab maj was 66 now 46

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting, but to be taken with a huge grain of salt:

"Warning The current numbers shown are provisional. They are calculated assuming that each old constituency is political homogeneous, and do not take local election results into account"

And o/c changes are not yet final in the old Metro Counties.

Reminds me to get back to work on something along these lines actually... one of the few plus sides to the stupid rules that say that ward results can't be released, is that we can all make our own guesses...

[afleitch]

I'm currently making a map of those results. If anyone wants the amended Boothroyd map for 2010. I put on here a few months ago (now updated) just let me know.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If anyone wants the amended Boothroyd map for 2010. I put on here a few months ago (now updated) just let me know.

Yes

[afleitch]

If anyone wants the amended Boothroyd map for 2010. I put on here a few months ago (now updated) just let me know.

Yes

No problem. I'll send it through in the morning

[afleitch]

Anthony Wells guide to the new seats.

http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/newseatguide.pdf

Note: Wells gives Chippenham a LIB maj of 1260 yet Baxter gives a CON maj of 5795!

Oh and Wells makes York Outer a Lib Dem seat!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting (I disagree with a few things though. Reminds me to get back to work on something...).

[Harry Hayfield]

Anthony Wells guide to the new seats.

http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/newseatguide.pdf

Note: Wells gives Chippenham a LIB maj of 1260 yet Baxter gives a CON maj of 5795!

Oh and Wells makes York Outer a Lib Dem seat!

So who's right? Wells or Baxter?

[afleitch]

Anthony Wells guide to the new seats.

http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/newseatguide.pdf

Note: Wells gives Chippenham a LIB maj of 1260 yet Baxter gives a CON maj of 5795!

Oh and Wells makes York Outer a Lib Dem seat!

So who's right? Wells or Baxter?

I'd go with Wells. Its a more marginal a seat than any of them predict to be honest, but Wells' method is probably the closest.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Neither; due to the lack of ward data from General Elections and the weird voting patterns seen in local elections pretty much everywhere (which I find interesting, but that's beside the point) it's impossible to be more that slightly accurate with this sort of thing. Even Rallings and Thrasher have made mistakes in the past (Gordon and the "Forest of Dean" both come to mind) after all.
In general though Wells's methodology is more likely to produce accurate results as it actually looks at ward level electoral data (although I have some serious misgivings about the way he's using it) rather than making the odd assumption that every part of a given constituency is the same as the rest of the constituency.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...and o/c the changes in most of the metropolitan counties aren't confirmed yet; and in the case of Greater Manchester they've barely begun.

[Kevinstat]

Any idea what's taking so long in Northern Ireland?  There were three Public Local Inquiries held in Belfast in September 2005, one for the four Belfast seats, one for the main County Antrim and Londonderry seats, and one for the main County Armagh and Down seats except for North Down.  North Down and the three seats mostly or entirely in Counties Fermanagh and Tyrone were unchanged and no public hearings were held regarding those constituencies.  But, according to the home page of the Boundary Commission's web site ( http://www.boundarycommission.org.uk/ ) and the inquiries page on that site, the reports and transcripts from those local inquiries are still being transcribed.  The Assistant Commissioners who held the inquiries and whose job it is to prepare the transcripts must have other duties, perhaps through other public capacities they serve, and preparing the transcripts must not be that high on their priority list.  Do any of you Brits have any recent news from Northern Ireland regarding the redrawing of constituency boundaries?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Do any of you Brits have any recent news from Northern Ireland regarding the redrawing of constituency boundaries?

No; I've have a check though. IIRC some changes to Antrim are very likely as the boundaries seriously mess up existing power bases.

[Kevinstat]

Do any of you Brits have any recent news from Northern Ireland regarding the redrawing of constituency boundaries?

No; I've have a check though. IIRC some changes to Antrim are very likely as the boundaries seriously mess up existing power bases.

Find anything yet?

I know it's only been a week since you posted last on this thread, but I've been waiting for new information on the redrawing of Northern Ireland's Westminster constituencies practically since May 2004, when I discovered that the Boundary Commission had recently released it's preliminary recomendations.  At that point, Nicholas Whyte, author of the awesome http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/ "site within a site" indicated on his "Boundary Commission Commentary" page ( http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/gboun04.htm ) that he was going to propose some changes to the plan to the commission and mentioned that he doubted the new "Antrim Coast and Glens" constituency "would survive a round of public enquiries."  Whyte wrote on this page that he "finalise this in late May / early June," but I don't think he ever did.  Since then, all I've learned is -

Never mind.  I just checked the Boundary Commission's web site to remind myself of what I have learned there when I discovered at their home page that - oh, never mind the never mind.  They've changed the first paragraph in the home page to "The Commission currently have under consideration reports from the three Assistant Commissioners who conducted the Public Local Inquiries held in September 2005," which made me think that I was going to find information about the inquiries,  but when I clicked on "Inquiries" I saw the same message that "Reports and Transcripts are being prepared."  I've looked around the site and there may be some new pages, but none of them seemed to reflect anything from the public inquiries.  I am currently satisfying myself with reading the commission's "Statement of Reasons for Provisional Recomendations," which I had started to skim through but where I guess I stopped reading before I got to the good stuff, like them explaining their reasoning on the particular transfers.  I am anxiously waiting for something new, though, as everything I've learned since May 2004 has revolved around what I learned then (even your comments mirrored Nicholas Whyte's predictions regarding at least the one of the major shifts in County Antrim (that of the Glens to East Antrim, or rather "Antrim Coast and Glens").  Perhaps the fact that at least the Commission has received the reports from the Assistant Commissioners of the Public Inquiries is an indication that the General Public (including interested observers from abroad who depend on "word of internet" (a play on the words "word of mouth") for this kind of information) will have access to either the reports or the transcripts from those inquiries soon.  After my lengthy waiting so far, though, I won't hold my breath.

Sincerely,

A frustrated Kevin Lamoreau

P.S. I know this shouldn't be this big a deal to me, but I've been waiting for something really new on this for nearly two years.  There's something about Northern Ireland that makes redistricting there interesting while I could have cared less about redistricting in Pennsylvania, even though the latter is a lot closer (well, I do live in the closest state to Ireland, but I know PA's closer, especially when you consider the comparative burdens to travel, like an ocean) and more likely to impact my life as the laws passed (or not passed) by Congress are likely to affect me far more than those impacted by 18 members of the House of Commons or those passed at Stormont.  Ever since someone on the forum (and it might have been the old forum, but anyway my frustration is all YOU GUYS'S FAULT - okay that's just me trying to be funny by pretending to be irritated, although I'm sure you can tell by now that with this post I'm not entirely pretenting) brought up the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly Elections and provided me a link to Nicholas White's site, I have been hooked on Northern Ireland electoral politics (emphasis on electoral, I could care less about whether there's peace there - okay, not really but my interest in Northern Ireland politics is largely related to elections - I mean there's a reason my handle on this site is Kevinstat).  It's an addiction that hasn't been sufficiently fed since the May 2005 Westminster Elections - and it's hungry!

Okay, I'm overstating things a bit here again.  I'll be fine.  Seriously, I will.  But I'll be very happy when some information on the public inquiries or, better yet, likely revised plans as to the constituency boundaries comes in.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Find anything yet?

'fraid not; by the sound of it they're aren't finished yet (neither is Greater Manchester o/c, which ironically has a large Irish population).

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My fault I think...

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Then some good news for you; NI will probably see fresh Assembly elections this year

[minionofmidas]

Find anything yet?

'fraid not; by the sound of it they're aren't finished yet (neither is Greater Manchester o/c, which ironically has a large Irish population).

Yeah, I've dug around the site a lot recently, and NI and Greater Manchester (minus Bury) are the last unconfirmed changes.

Size of parliament will increase by 4 btw (unless there's changes to the overall total for NI or Manchester, which is exceedingly unlikely.)

[Harry Hayfield]

Re: New Assembly elections in NI

I do so hope so, BBC NI's election results service is wonderful!