UK parliamentary boundary review

[JimJamUK]

As I understand it (and the other Britposters can correct me here) the reason that any boundary review would boost the Tories are twofold:
1) England receives a fairer share of the seats and the Tories are stronger in England.
2) People moving out of cities over time has led to cities being overrepresented in seats.

One thing that needs stressing for American posters is that the boundary review is nonpartisan and decided by independent bodies in each of the four nations. Biases do slip in occasionally but nothing like Illinois or North Carolina.

You are correct. It’s particularly Labour voting Wales that is overrepresented. It’s also post-industrial areas seeing relatively low population growth (if any) that has traditionally led to boundary reviews helping the Conservatives. Against this, the Tory gains in Welsh marginals and many ‘left behind’ areas has narrowed their notional benefit from boundary reviews. Also, this review was based on a more accurate electoral register than the 2015 one which has resulted in more private renters/students being counted (and Labour has generally been gaining in these sorts of ‘cosmopolitan’ areas) which has further reduced the previous national Conservative gains.

To add, the bias usually results from one party making more of an effort and knowing how to persuade the commission with non-partisan reasoning. Labour’s response to the pre-1997 review has been viewed as one of the most successful attempts to get favourable boundaries (though I can’t remember if it made much actual difference given they easily won the next 2 elections).

[JimJamUK]

'Solihull' appearing in the names of three constituencies. Should I laugh or bang my head against the wall? Or both?

It’s apparently an insignificant enough place that they felt the need to include Shirley in the name of the existing Solihull constituency, but significant enough that a constituency containing 2 wards (neither including the town proper) must include Solihull in its name.

[JimJamUK]

Weaver Vale is another name which disappears.  Northwich joins Winsford from Eddisbury and Middlewich from Congleton in Mid Cheshire, while Frodsham, Helsby and the parts of Runcorn in the constituency join with the rest of Runcorn from the existing Halton constituency and smaller parts of Ellesmere Port & Neston and Eddisbury to form Runcorn & Helsby.

The new Mid Cheshire looks like a marginal which would have voted Tory by a modest margin in 2019.

For our international posters, ‘Mid’ is another term for ‘Leftovers’ i.e. the places that were left once you drew coherent constituencies around it. In this case, it’s actually and very unusually ended up producing a logical constituency, certainly more so than either of its 2 main predecessors (especially Weaver Vale). ‘Northwich and Winsford’ would have been a perfectly decent name.

[JimJamUK]

I'm sure someone can actually work it out but it seems the strange trend of very long names is returning & at risk at sounding like a luddite often with minor names that mere mortals don't know!

I would much rather have one slightly broad or incorrect name that the trend to have a weird mix.

Its long been the case that the commission will add more places to constituency names as a means of showing it’s taken concerns onboard, but it’s gotten even more out of hand this review. This has not been helped by the number of constituencies with sub-standard boundaries (some necessary, some not) which leads to larger names being viewed as necessary (again, often as a sop to complainers).

[JimJamUK]

I suspect it is even harder to be confident of partisan effects in Scotland than elsewhere.  However, it's clear that no seats in this area flip, although Electoral Calculus shows a noticeable narrowing of the SNP majority over Labour in Lothian East.

This seems correct, and will be more noticeable if there’s substantial tactical voting. Agree that it’s hard to notice the partisan implications for most of these seats, the multi-party nature of Scottish politics means there aren’t as big differences in support by party in different areas, especially for the SNP.

[JimJamUK]

In other words, it would be better overall.

Never forget the 5% variation limit arose from a lengthy grift from the likes of Policy Exchange about how the existing arrangements gave Labour A hUgE aNd PeRmAnEnT iNbUiLt AdVaNtAgE - and the original proposal for only 600 MPs had similar overtly partisan motivations.

Has there ever been any actual evidence of how quota variation limits and the number of MPs supposedly benefit Labour? Much more important as far as I can tell was the separate quota for Wales, along with the relative decline in Labour voting urban/post-industrial areas.

Of course, in reality both the existing and proposed boundaries currently have a major bias against Labour owing to its poor vote distribution, which only looks to be moderately curtailed at the next election.

[JimJamUK]

There are definitely issues with a lot of the random rural seats going Labour, however. To me the classic example is Central Devon - I just don't understand the theory of change for how a seat whose largest towns are Okehampton and Crediton and which has no historic or present industry is supposed to be a viable Labour target.

I agree, but Labour have done relatively well there the past couple of elections so clearly there’s some Labour potential, even if UNS ignores there’s probably also a relatively low ceiling.