Let the great boundary rejig commence

[minionofmidas]

The best solution is a rolling review. Divide England up according to counties (as was the case at previous reviews, before the new policy of amorphous blobbism) and when the seats in a county get too big/small, review it.

That would also work but would require a much larger tolerance of deviation.

[minionofmidas]

Fresh outrages planned for 16th October!

Wales on the 24th.

[minionofmidas]

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.

lolwut

Anyways, I'll be looking at stuff now.

[minionofmidas]

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?

[minionofmidas]

What kind of animal? How about a sea horse?

A seaminotaur.

[minionofmidas]

Cute. May I pet it - ouch! It nibbled my hand clean off!

[minionofmidas]

I've just read the East Midlands report...

After reading the other southern reports first.

Um.

Um.

Have a look at this ... thing.

[minionofmidas]

I think I score just two wins on my recommendations (of changes that is, not counting stuff they proposed that was uncontroversial).

The name of the cross-Menai constituency. And more importantly getting Ruabon into what, sadly, will not be named after Owain Glyndwr. Maybe something I'm forgetting. Oh yeah, the name of Conwy & Colwyn for the "North Coast" thingy, but that was a no-brainer.
Of course, I spent much time on developping an alternative to their messed-up and indefensible Valleys and Cardiff proposals ... and those were duly redrawn ... just not in the way I envisaged. (They are better than the original proposals now... but I still prefer my version. I think. Would need to look it up again.) They also did not split the core slate district as in the original proposals... by moving it all to Gwynedd.

Cardiff N & SW Gwent (for which read "Cardiff N, Newport W & Risca") though... and I notice it or something similar was actually proposed by Labour and the Tories... it reminds me of the Middlesbrough S & Cleveland E of yore. 

[minionofmidas]

Yeah I score 'wins'  in the names of South Pembrokeshire, and Conwy and Colwyn. Minor kudos with Powys, as I recommended the seats should have Montgomery(shire) in there somewhere

Not so good with "Dee Estuary", which I thought should be "Flint and West Flintshire"

I think I proposed "Flint & Rhyl".


There's something I understood about the way the legislation works, and indeed the previous legislation worked as well. There is nothing in there about drawing logical constituencies (although esp. in the past it was usually tried anyways). There is only something in there about avoiding unlogical boundaries at the micro level. It is perfectly within the spirit of the legislation to pair two self-contained areas that border each other but have no ties and nothing in common a la Darwen & Bolton North or Corby & East Northamptonshire - apart from the exclusion of Lower Darwen and the splitting of Rushden from Irthlingborough, both of which are violations of the principles. (Of course there is literally nowhere logical to combine Darwen with, so in that case the whole point is sort of moot). My South Wales proposals might actually have looked different if I had understood that better.

[minionofmidas]

I'll not sleep soundly until it's official.

[minionofmidas]

Specific constituencies has nothing to do with it. At all. Blame the formation of the island thousands of years ago for the shape of the Wirral peninsula.

Labour MPs were set upon the House of Lords Bill, to ensure that the Lords remains unelected and unaccountable. Labour MPs were set upon the AV referendum to ensure that the Commons is unrepresentative. And now Labour Lords have ensured that a vote in the middle of Glasgow is a different value to a vote in the middle of Manchester.

I've been wary of Labour supporters and their elected (by and large appointed) MPs. This Parliament has been a showcase of shame from the so-called 'party of the people'

Dok, much though I hate to concur with our Labour posters, the only reason this boundary review is not going through is because of the childish petulance of Nick Clegg. Labourites, unhappy a bias towards them in the electoral system would be removed, are I suppose at liberty to vote against this review. The Lib Dems - a member of the governing party who voted to pass the PVSCA 2011 - are not, really.

Rennard's amendment has not been passed in the Lords through independent minded peers sagely considering that amendment and voting for it. The whole thing was orchestrated out of Nick Clegg's office. The man has proved himself a petulant idiot who has stamped his foot and got this through on a whipped vote.

Your party has decided to vote against fair votes solely to screw the Tories over for having the temerity to vote down Lords reform. Much as I might curse the w--kers on our benches for voting down Lords reform, that's the way it's worked, and Nick Clegg has had his petulant tit-for-tat with Nadine Dorries, Jesse Norman, et al by having this amendment put down and passed.

And of course that wouldn't have happened if the boundary rejig and the 2011 law itself hadn't been such a royal screwup* - if Clegg hadn't had good reason to feel (and was presumably getting peergroup feedback) that this review is simply not up to scratch and not an improvement. Besides, there's the whole AV referendum stuff as well - the bottomline is that this bill was part of a package of constitutional reform, it was both the least necessary part and the only part favoring the Tories, and if they scuttle the rest there's really no reason why they should have this.

*And by that I don't mean the general ideas of a somewhat lesser tolerance, faster reviews and an end to the overrepresentation of Wales - these are sound proposals (now that the greater powers for the Assembly have been passed). The devil was in the details, some of them created for naked partisan reasons. Like the amendments to protect Tory backbench constituencies even when they don't make sense. Or of course the Commission's ward policy (in which it was encouraged by Labour as well )