UK parliamentary boundary review

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anything update-worthy on this front?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If there was a tool like DRA for the UK we could have some fun drawing maps or hilarious gerrymanders

Sadly, no such tool exists

https://boundaryassistant.org/

Huh, that is a very interesting and fun tool! Sadly, it has no election data of any kind which is half the fun of DRA

combine it with electoralcalculus if need be.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I get that Electoral Calculus is flawed. But is there any alternative?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Is it possible to engineer a Labour seat in Cornwall? I think Truro, Falmouth and Redruth are more amenable.

It would be easier if you halved the number of seats in the House of Commons. That way seats would be larger and it would be possible to link them all up.

edit: it seems possible to link up even with current sizes. interesting. I didn't realize how close they were to each other.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Is it possible to engineer a Labour seat in Cornwall? I think Truro, Falmouth and Redruth are more amenable.

update: after some finagling I was able to make this:

this is a Cornwall Labourmander. Orange and red are probably winnable for Labour?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What is the most Conservative seat in the country under these new boundaries?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What's the likelihood these don't get made into law and Labour is in power next time a redistribution is done?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What's the likelihood these don't get made into law and Labour is in power next time a redistribution is done?

Under the current law they will pass automatically once all four Commissions have completed their reports, next summer.

If somehow there's a General Election before then, it will take place on the existing boundaries, but unless legislation is passed to cancel this review then these boundaries would still come into effect for the following General Election.  I don't know the chances of a Labour government passing such legislation is; my own view is that (barring the Commissions collectively making what I believe is known as a complete Neath & Swansea East of things) they should not; I don't believe there is intrinsic bias in the current rules, the existing boundaries are now quite out of date, and for the most part I think the Commissions have worked out how to produce reasonably acceptable constituencies under these rules.  (There have always been some unsatisfactory constituencies.)  I do think that it would make some sense to set up a process to look at what the rules should be for future reviews.

Ah. I was not aware of changes to redistribution law.
It seems the Welsh "seat bonus" is probably gone for good.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It takes Diss and rural areas from South Norfolk and swathes of rural Suffolk from Bury St Edmunds and Central Suffolk & North Ipswich, including the small town of Eye which once gave its name to a constituency.  In spite of the name it is not really the successor to Waveney, though it does take the rural area around Bungay (recently revealed by the Census to be a hotbed of Satanism, if you count around 1% of the population as a hotbed) from that constituency, which becomes more concentrated around Lowestoft town and is renamed Lowestoft.

Evidently the Prince of Darkness himself arranged for this constituency to be produced by the Commission, to allow his worshippers to have a better chance at getting a seat to themselves.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

These summaries were great, thank you very much.
Thank you for your hard work.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What would this review look like if it was done on, say, late 2000s rules?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's a mock-up of what this might entail (tried to avoid crossing any district boundaries)
Northumberland
yellow 60283
mauve 62580
red 64593
blue 61958

North Tyneside
orange 77382
green 79033

Newcastle upon Tyne
pink 63164
purple 62443
light teal 65450

Gateshead
yellow 74674
mauve 69945

South Tyneside
red 56947
blue 58423

Sunderland
orange 66339
green 68963
pink 72688

Durham
purple 81296
light teal 74679
green 80426
mauve 78992
red 78140

Darlington 78498
Hartlepool 71228

Stockton-on-Tees
green 71804
pink 71977

Middlesborough, Redcar and Cleveland
yellow 69398
light teal 66256
purple 65440