Let the great boundary rejig commence

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Wyre Borough Council's submission (number 002842) proposes a few changes to Blackpool/Wyre/Fylde

Wyre and Blackpool North would be Blackpool's northern suburbs, Fleetwood, and Poulton-le-Fylde

Fylde would be the borough of Fylde, Lea from Preston and some of the Blackpool eastern bits

Blackpool South would be all the remaining central and southern bits of Blackpool (the "Golden Mile Constituency", if you will).

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Sefton Borough Council (number 011458) has forwarded a motion passed at Council urging the Coalition to relax the upper electorate quota.

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Dok, have you seen the proposed names in submission 013694?

Oh my






Oh my

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Where can we see these submissions?

http://consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/have-your-say/


But be warned = it's slow work

If you know a reference number,you can just bung that in.

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And now for a submission in Cornish......


http://consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/themes/bce/assets/annex/BCE_Truro_day1_annex.pdf?9d7bd4

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Dok, have you seen the proposed names in submission 013694?

I recommend everyone checks this one - there's some belters

"Blackpool Tower", "Manchester Salford Quays", and my particular favourite "Port Solent and HMS Victory"

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Haha

As it happens , he suggests "Liverpool Allerton", as do we, so there's one point on which we agree!

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Dadge - that's very useful!

I'm not going to get any work done for the next week, but thanks!

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Somewhere in the London transcript is a quote from the Assistant Commissioner who says "It is not the Commission's policy to split wards"

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I've found this classic rant in the Scottish Commission comments section

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The Boundary Commission for England has produced an Excel spreadsheet in which every constituency has a refernence number associated with it, making it easier to look at opinions/submissions on a seat-by-seat basis.

In terms of Preston, there's only one topic of debate; Fishwick. Everyone who has written in wants Fishwick to stay in Preston (for some reasons more partisan than others), and as there is cross-Party support in all the counter submissions, I have no doubt that it will happen.

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Looking at the Lancashire submissions, it's certainly obvious that the western parts are going to be barely touched from the initial proposals.

Blackpool South - no submissions at all, the main parties don't touch anything at all, I think we move a couple of wards around
Blackpool North and Fleetwood - main parties don't do much with this, Wyre Borough Council seem to be the only group who want to change things (and "Wyre and Blackpool North" is utterly bonkers).
Fylde - most seem to support it, including some residents, and again it's only Wyre Borough Council who are against.
"Lancaster" is supported more or less by the Conservatives, who nibble around the edges and reintroduce "...and Wyre" to the constituency name. Labour and our lot go for something far more extreme ("Garstang and Carnforth" for the former, "Wyre and Preston North" and "Valleys of Ribble and Lune" for the latter).
Preston has submissions from members of the public dealing with just one ward rather than the whole seat, and with the Conservatives only dealing with the whole constituency it seems likely that Labour (adding bits of Fulwood and suburban outcrops) and our idea (cutting it through the middle and adding as much of South Ribble as we could get away with) won't convince anyone to change things.

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It was chin-stroked over at (what was) VoteUK at the time that the BCE had used a computer to draw most of its proposals in double-quick time. Evidence abounded - the decisions to add one ward from certain boroughs with similar/identical names to neighbours; the prominence they gave electorate numbers; the manner in which specific boroughs had been paired; the way in which constituencies did not feature names of population centres which made up the majority of its electorate (See, related to this, Lancaster, a constituency which echoes the predecessor "Lancaster & Wyre". Without a town called 'Wyre'  to point to on a map, how was the computer to know that it should include it within the file name?)

I have ever decreasing doubts that BCE used a programme to draw up the proposals, and then humans to justifty it. Too many cases of mountains, country lanes and River Merseys to call it all "coincidence".

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I probably said this before, but do you think a computer came up with "Colne Valley and Skelmanthorpe"?

I would say it's a possibility.

Put it this way - if a computer programme had been used with the instructions "Come up with names based on an algorithm using ward electorates", it's highly likely that it would have suggested something like that. See how "Tatton" disappeared - would a computer have known to keep the name "Tatton"?

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And as we all know by now, the second consultation process in England is now........closed.

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"Aberconwy and North Powys" is a thing of beauty.

Gerrymandered beauty, but still....

Interesting amount of consensus amongst all the parties which aren't Labour, especially in the south-east.

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Cheers squire

I have written (but failed to keep a copy of) a response to the BCW about the Labour proposal for "Llandudno Beach and the Shropshire marshes" or whatever it is. Complete  bobbins of the highest order.

Just as I think it's easy to guess what the BCE will do in specific regions, it seems to me that the BCW will tinker with the north (maybe just name changes as there's not much call for ward switching or the like from what I've read) and wholesale changes in the Valleys (where everyone considers it necessary to rip up and start again).

There's a great submission from someone getting into a right huff about the proposed Caerfyrddin seat, because he thinks a) nobody will be able to pronounce it, and b) the name would give the impression of it "being a nationalist stronghold".

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I have no doubt, Harry, but you know how people are when they get out their green pens and start scrawling letters around.

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Stepney, that rant was almost Daily Mail esque!  I ticked off the bingo card at least six old favourites....

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My dear Stepney

The point you made comparing the changes with TH and Wales is very well made (and I genuinely mean that!). I am not going to pick holes, there's a fair amount of chin-stroke content you've provided

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The Bengali language Wikipedia tells me "বেথনাল গ্রিন" which Google Translate tells me is "Bēthanāla grina"


There is no Bengali language Wiki page for "Bow".

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Ditto "টাওয়ার হ্যামলেট্‌স" / "Ṭā'ōẏāra hyāmalēṭsa"

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The Boundary Commission for Scotland will reveal its revised recommendations in September
The ditto ditto for England will ditto ditto in October.

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I'm fairly deflated about this

House of Lords reform can wait. The boundary changes can't. Clegg's stance is disappointing.

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What would be necessary, and indeed sort of logical, but is not going to happen because that is not the way laws work, is for the Commissions to be given new, nonpartisan procedures which to use in order to start from scratch with.
Since the Commissions will be forced to bumble on incompetently, I fully expect Clegg to climb down and meekly enact the gerrymander in the end.

The proposals are not gerrymandering.