Talk Elections

(Source: 2015 Conservative Manifesto)


I will be buying a copy of the newspapers tomorrow and tallying up the election (both on the 2015 boundaries and the aborted 2013 boundaries) but there is nothing to stop the experts here (who I know had a wonderful time last time) creating their dream 600 seat Parliament.

Please no Mersey Banks.

I'm not sure if a two term government facing the electorate should necessarily want boundaries that would inevitably increase the impact of national swing, but politicians can be funny about these things.

What does the bolded mean? That there will be new boundaries drawn in 2018 according to the new rules? Or rather that the aborted last round of districts will just be put into place?

I suppose it means than the Boundary Commission reports will be the law, without the Parliament having to pass the reports themselves.

I wasn't opposed to the law, but I was opposed to the stupid way the Boundary Commission chose to implement it.

According to the law, as I understand it, constituency electorates had to be within 3500 or so of the regional average.  And the Commission tried to accomplish this by gluing together wards with populations of around 10,000.  Is there any wonder why some of these constituencies had such weird shapes?  I mean, seriously, can't the Commission come up with more reasonably-sized building blocks?

And Mersey Banks was the result of arbitrary rules the Commission imposed upon itself.  First, they declared that there weren't enough links between the Wirral and Liverpool.  (I mean, the only things connecting the two are a couple of tunnels used by thousands of commuters and maybe a subway system, but that's obviously not enough justification for crossing a water barrier like the Mersey.) 

So, the Commission reviewed the Wirral with Cheshire instead.  And then once they were irretrievably committed down this path, they declared that the city of Chester, sitting at the base of the Wirral peninsula, had to remain intact, so they had only a narrow piece of land to connect Bebington to northwestern Cheshire.  Dumber and dumberer.

My only real objection to the law itself was that while the number of seats was reduced, the Isle of Wight was suddenly guaranteed 2 seats.

Yes, in England this was the main problem.  The proposals in Scotland, where they were happy to split wards, were much better, and Wales had one really horrible seat (the Denbighshire/Montgomeryshire one) which was probably forced by the geography and the size constraints, but apart from that the proposals weren't too bad.


They had proposed a Liverpool/Wirral link in the previous review, and there was an outcry.  I never checked whether the maths worked out for it in the abandoned one, but really Mersey Banks was the result of the ward splitting problem mentioned above: it wasn't hard to propose something more sensible if you were prepared to split a ward or two, and some people did.


Yes, I think 2 was the right number (if it was going to be an integer) given the Isle's electorate at the time, but putting it into law was just silly.

I would have preferred it if the rules were flexible enough to allow most ceremonial counties in England to be treated on their own.  Something like 5% deviation in general, but 10% if that allows you to keep a county intact; that would certainly have been enough to avoid "Devonwall" and the Notts/Leics border seat.

These are the electorates (and averages) for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

Northern Ireland: 1,236,687 = 18 seats = 68,705 electors per seat
Scotland: 4,099,926 = 59 seats = 69,490 electors per seat
Wales: 2,282,297 = 40 seats = 57,057 electors per seat
Average so far: 7,618,910 = 117 seats = 65,118 electors per seat

England (by it's sheer size) will take a lot longer to tally but when I have done, I shall post the regional tallies

I have managed to complete the calculations (based on the estimates that Electoral Calculus did) of the proposed 600 seat house and this is how that election would have turned out:

Conservatives 317 seats (+21 seats)
Labour 209 seats (-25 seats)
Scottish National Party 51 seats (+45 seats)
Democratic Unionist Party 8 seats (unchanged)
Sinn Fein 5 seats (unchanged)
Liberal Democrats 3 seats (-44 seats)
Plaid Cymru 3 seats (+2 seats)
SDLP 2 seats (unchanged)
Green Party 1 seat (+1 seat)
Independent 1 seat (unchanged)
Conservative majority of 34

The gains from the notional election of 2010 and 2015 are (excluding Scotland which saw the SNP win every single seat bar Orkney and Shetland)

Con GAINS: Balham and Tooting (Lab), Bath (Lib Dem), Battersea and Vauxhall (Lab), Berwick, Alnwick and Morpeth (Lib Dem), Bodmin and St. Austell (Lib Dem), Bolton West (Lab), Brecon, Radnor and Montgomery (Lib Dem), Carshalton and Couldson (Lib Dem), Cheadle (Lib Dem), Cheltenham (Lib Dem), Colchester (Lib Dem), Devon North (Lib Dem), Eastbourne (Lib Dem), Eastleigh (Lib Dem), Gloucestershire South East (Lib Dem), Hampton (Lib Dem), Hazel Grove and Poyton (Lib Dem), Kingston and Surbiton (Lib Dem), Norfolk North (Lib Dem), Plymouth Devonport (Lab), Richmond and Twickenham (Lib Dem), Solihull (Lib Dem), Somerton and Frome (Lib Dem), Southampton Itchen (Lab), Southport (Lib Dem), St. Ives (Lib Dem), Stockton South (Lab), Sutton and Cheam (Lib Dem), Taunton (Lib Dem), Torbay (Lib Dem), Truro and Newquay (Lib Dem), Yeovil (Lib Dem)
Lab GAINS: Bermondsey and South Bank (Lib Dem), Bristol West (Lib Dem), Cambridge (Lib Dem), Cardiff Central (Lib Dem), Chester (Con), Croydon East (Con), Dewsbury (Con), Enfield North (Con), Hornsey and Wood Green (Lib Dem), Hove (Con), Luton North and Dunstable (Con), Manchester Withington (Lib Dem), Norwich South (Lib Dem), Otley (Con), Redcar (Lib Dem), Sheffield Hallam and Penistone (Lib Dem), Shipley (Con), Southampton Test (Con), Willesden (Lib Dem), Wirral Deeside (Con),
Green GAINS: Brighton, Pavillion (Lab)
Plaid GAINS: Carmarthen (Lab), Ynys Môn ac Bangor (Lab),

I'm anxiously awaiting the release of the Electoral roll numbers as of 1 December 2015 (which will be the basis of the next review), by country, local authority and ward.  Once that data comes in, people will be able to play around with the redistricting with actual "hard" numbers (I don't see why we need to wait until the Boundary Commissions make their provisional recommendations).

My focus is on Northern Ireland, which looks like it will have 16 MPs (it barely would have had 16 in the abortive last review, but I think that was after the changes to the electoral register had happened in Northern Ireland but before they happened elsewhere in the UK).  I kind of hope it drops to 15 or only drops to 17 which might allow for slightly neater lines in that area (with 16 you'll have to have a major crossing of either the Bann or the Blackwater, although that might be the case with 15 or 17 as well).  That would also be different from what people like Nicholas Whyte have already drawn plans for during the abortive last review.

In terms of electoral reform, there might also be a change in the European Elections.
In the beginning of March, there will be the second reading in the House of Commons on a bill to make provision for an open list system for elections to the European Parliament.

A LSE study from 2013 showed that such a change would mean that support for UKIP would decrease, and the overall vote share for the Conservative party would increase as voters could choose very Eurosceptic Conservatives instead of UKIP if they were to be sure that their vote would benefit a Eurosceptic candidate. Also, it should lead to candidates and MEP increasing their constituency work and building a stronger local profile.

Since this will probably benefit the Conservatives, I guess there should be a good chance of it being passed. I guess the opposition MPs in favour of general election reform would also see this as a step forward.

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/europeanparliamentelections.html

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/27/european-parliament-open-list/

Has the size of the House of Commons ever shrank before?

Pride's Purge comes to mind.

Ever is a long time.  Starting from the "co-option" of the first Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and (all of) Ireland in 1801, there were 658 MPs then.  The number bounced around in the 650s in the mid- to late 19th century (the last decrease being from 658 to 652 in 1874) but only increased after that (going to 670 in 1885 and 717 in 1918) until what is now the Republic of Ireland, which then had 75 seats broke away (originally as the Irish Free State under the crown).  The House of Commons thus was at 642 MPs going into the 1922 election, but declined further in that election to 615 as Northern Ireland, which now had a Parliament of it's own, was stripped of 17 MPs to go from 30 seats to 13.

The size of the House of Commons rose to 640 for the 1945 election, but dropped to 625 by the next election in 1950 as the Labour Government abolished the University MPs among other changes.  After 1950, the next reduction was from 659 seats to 646 in 2005 as the era of Scottish overrepresentation in the House of Commons was ended now that it had a its own parliament with devolved powers.  The reduction and redrawing of Scottish seats was part of the same Fifth Periodic Review of Parliamentary constituencies as the rest of the UK, but only in Scotland was the review completed in time for the 2005 elections.  Even if all four constituent countries had had their changes go into effect for the same election, though, there still would have been a reduction in the size of the House of Commons as it only rose from 646 to 650 as a result of the Fifth Periodic Review outside Scotland.

It's possible that the number of non-university MPs in England has only increased since sometime in the 19th century, but I'm not sure and anyway this should make it clear that the size of the House of Commons has gone down before.

If one likes the admittedly arbitrary cube root rule, the size of the Commons ought to be around 400 seats.

In a country as centralised as the UK though, you really need quite a big House for the job to be done (unless you create regional assemblies, but most English people don't want that.)

Ugh, what a horrible idea. Legislatures all over the world are dramatically smaller than they should be, and the British House was one of the few that wasn't too bad...

The data's out now, I think, but I'm still having a hard time finding everything.  You can view the Electoral Commission's press release at http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-reviews-and-research/electoral-commission-report-on-1-december-2015-electoral-registers-in-great-britain or view their report at http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/197516/IER-assessment-December-2015-registers.pdf .

In the present parliament, counting any vacancies as seats, England has 533 seats/constituencies (which could be thought of for comparison purposes as 532 + 1 (Isle of Wight)), Scotland 59 (57+1+1), Wales 40 and Northern Ireland 18.

Under the abortive last review, England was going to have 502 seats/constituencies (500 + 2 on the Isle of Wight), Scotland 52 (50+1+1), Wales 30 and Northern Ireland 16.

From other sources, I can see that changes in the electoral roll from 1 December ? (2011 was it?) to 1 December 2015 have resulted in Scotland and Northern Ireland each "gaining" a seat (or losing one less) and England and Wales each losing (an additional) one.

In the coming review, England will be divided into 501 seats/constituencies (499 + 2 on the Isle of Wight), Scotland 53 (51+1+1), Wales 29 and Northern Ireland 17.

The Boundary Commission for England has data, including ward electorates, at
http://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/data-and-resources/electoral-data-for-the-2018-review/

I haven't seen ward data yet for the other three Commissions.

As you say, the numbers are 501 for England, 53 in Scotland, 29 in Wales and 17 in NI.  Compared with the aborted review England and Wales each lose a seat while Scotland and NI gain.

The quota is 74,769, the lower limit is 71,031 and the upper limit is 78,507.  (This excludes the two constituencies on the Isle of Wight as well as Na h-Eileanan an Iar and Orkney & Shetland; furthermore Northern Ireland will have a different lower limit, but in the aborted review the BCNI didn't use it.)

In England, the regional breakdown is:
East Midlands 44
East of England 57
London 68
North East 25
North West 68
South East excluding IOW 81
South West 53
West Midlands 53
Yorkshire & the Humber 50

(Compared with the abortive review, the North East and West Midlands lose one and the East gains one.)

Welsh ward electorates now available from here (http://bcomm-wales.gov.uk/2018-review/10959323/?lang=en).

There are some Northern Ireland figures at http://www.boundarycommission.org.uk/index/publications.htm but I think they're for the old wards.

I still can't find anything for Scotland.

Minimum electorate* of new constituencies (outside Northern Ireland): 71,031
The "quota": 74,769.19, or just 74,769 (doesn't matter here, even when calculating the below fractional quotas to four decimal places)
Maximum electorate* of new constituencies: 78,507
Electorate* of "Devon, Plymouth and Torbay": 852,765 (11.4053 quotas, within 5% of both 11 and 12)
Electorate* of "Cornwall & Isles of Scilly": 393,874 (5.2679 quotas)
   this number ÷ 5: 78,774.8 (267.8 electors too many, darn.  But wait...)
Electorate* of Cornwall "proper" (not including the Isles of Scilly): 392,223 (5.2458 quotas)
   this number ÷ 5: 78,444.6 (62.4 electors below the maximum)
Electorate* of the Isles of Scilly: 1,651 (0.0221 quotas)

*as of 1 December 2015

Devonscilly anyone? :D

You know, if it actually meant they could find a way of covering Cornwall "proper" with five constituencies I wouldn't put it past the BCE to do that; they could put them with Lundy in a "North Devon and Atlantic Islands" constituency or something. :)

Anyway, here is my first attempt at South Yorkshire + one ward from Wakefield borough.

One issue is that Sheffield has new ward boundaries coming in in May; past form suggests the BCE will use the old ones, and try not to split them, though I suspect it's not possible to avoid splitting them altogether.  Another thing is that Barnsley and Rotherham combined at 4.81 quotas are a bit tight for five seats, so I think it's worth considering throwing Stocksbridge & Upper Don ward from Sheffield (which isn't really part of the city) in with them.  (Sheffield has 5.10 quotas with it and 4.91 without, so it could work either way.)  This is what I did below.

Doncaster's three seats are all slightly below quota, and there are new ward boundaries (in this case, already being used by the Commission).  To deal with this, I'm going to borrow South Elmsall & South Kirkby ward from Wakefield.  The borough and county numbers suggest crossing this boundary, and that ward is the obvious way to do it.  Anyway, it goes into Doncaster North & Moorthorpe (75,064) which is otherwise the existing Doncaster North without its parts of Thorne & Moorends and Stainforth & Barnby Dun wards.  The latter goes to Doncaster Central (72,729) and the former to Don Valley (75,835) which also takes in all of the split Tickhill & Wadworth ward.  The eastern extension to Doncaster Central looks a bit odd on the map, but it's a fairly simple solution.

NB the rest of Wakefield is workable without that ward, though one slightly ugly seat seems necessary.

Rother Valley (73,511) can remain unchanged.  Rotherham (71,116) just about makes it if it gains Wickersley.  [There is a case for swapping Wickersley and Sitwell between these seats, but I don't think the BCE would do it.]  The numbers don't seem to work out with the two Dearne wards being in the Rotherham/Barnsley cross-border seat, so instead group Silverwood, Rawmarsh, Swinton, Wath and Hoober wards of Rotherham with Wombwell, Rockingham and Hoyland Milton of Barnsley to form Wentworth & Wombwell (72,925).

The rest of Barnsley is then a tight fit electorate-wise, but the first thing I tried just works.  The Dearne wards go back into Barnsley East (78,494) together with Darfield, Cudworth, Stairfoot, Worsbrough, North East, Royston, Monk Bretton and St. Helen's, and the rest of Barnsley together with Stocksbridge & Upper Don makes Barnsley West & Stocksbridge (78,116).

In Sheffield, if we work with the old wards (the ones we have figures for) Sheffield Hallam (71,249) can take Walkley instead of Dore & Totley.  Elsewhere I'm going to split a couple of wards.  The Ecclesfield wards come into Sheffield Hillsborough (82,308-x) which, compared with the existing Brightside & Hillsborough, needs to lose Burngreave and the Brightside part of Shiregreen & Brightside.  The latter joins the existing Sheffield South East which I'm going to rename Sheffield Attercliffe & Brightside (66,987+x).  Sheffield Central (67,319+y) loses Walkley and gains Burngreave and the Norfolk Park part of Arbourthorne, the rest of which stays in Sheffield Heeley (79,238-y) which took on Dore & Totley.  That's not too much change in Sheffield all things considering.

If you use the new wards in Sheffield, I assume Hallam must come within quota by realigning with the new ward boundaries.  Walkley can then stay in Central, which should probably then take on Hillsborough instead of Burngreave (giving some naming issues) and split Manor Castle with Heeley (which doesn't need Dore) instead of Arbourthorne.

I just e-mailed the Boundary Commission for England asking for a breakdown of the Clovelly Bay ward (in the Torridge district, and on the opposite side of Westward Ho! and all that from the North Devon district (which does have a convenient 0.9796 or 0.9795 quotas, depending on whether you round the quota to the nearest integer or not), between Lundy and the mainland.  I strongly hinted at your "North Devon and Atlantic Islands" idea, without mentioning you beyond that my quandy was partly inspired by something a fellow interested party who I thought lived in England (unlike me) had mentioned.  You might not have known that Lundy was in the Torridge district (in a ward with a part of the mainland not adjacent to North Devon) though.



Do you know if the Stocksbridge & Upper Don ward in (officially) Sheffield remain unchanged, or close enough to unchanged that you could probably keep it in your proposed Barnsley West & Stocksbridge constituency regardless of which vintage of wards are used in Sheffield?

Btw I love "The Full Monty".  That's what I think about when I think of Sheffield.  That and Def Leopard.  (There's a statue of Steve Clark there, right?)

Yes, it's unchanged.

Here's a map of the ideas (the "old wards" version).  I fear Doncaster Central fails the "it shoudn't look like some strange animal" test.
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I tried quickly to look for an alternative.  I suppose you already looked at crossing the Doncaster-Barnsley or Doncaster-Rotherham border, but you already crossed the Barnsley border twice and the Rotherham border once in your plan.  The southern two districts in Humberside (east of Doncaster, within the Yorkshire and the Humber region) add up to 3.1090 quotas (Doncaster has 2.8296), but the northern two districts of Humberside at 5.7449 could use that excess population to give more flexibility within that region, plus you'd be crossing the metropolitan boundary if you put any of North Lincolnshire in a Doncaster has constituency.

Wakefield has 3.1738 quotas, so it fits nicely with Doncaster's 2.8296, and while Leeds with 6.8919 quotas might seem like a better place to put Wakefield's excess, being within West Yorkshire and all, Bradford to the west of Leeds has 4.3706 quotas.  Bradford could just combine with Calderdale (1.9107 quotas) for six constituencies, but shedding a ward to a Leeds constituency (perhaps the two "bulges", although shedding both would probably mean two constituencies crossing the Bradford-Leeds border) would give more flexibility there.  The remaining district in West Yorkshire, Kirklees, has a nice 3.9509 quotas and can be kept intact with four constituencies.  I haven't divided up those areas (or anything yet really) into constituencies, but at first glance what you did with the Doncaster-Wakefield crossing seems like the best solution.

This gives 10 seats to Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale without splitting any wards, but is, um, nuts, in several ways.

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Just loving Bradford Central & Bingley... ;D

Heard back from the BCE today:


British government folks who field inquiries like to use the word "trust" when making replies, don't they (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=83158.msg1802956#msg1802956).

The Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland tweeted a link to the ward electorate data: http://tinyurl.com/hpdz88k

Have fun!

Thanks.  I've (for the time being at least) lost my interest in doing NI redistricting myself (I started to try a 5-constituency Cornwall minus Scilly but didn't like the things I would have to do - there's very little margin for deviation there), although I did enjoy looking at Nicholas Whyte's proposal (for Northern Ireland, not Cornwall) at http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2622625.html .

My attempt at Northern Ireland with a 4 seat Belfast:
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Belfast zoom:
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Basically East Belfast expands to include Holywood and North to include the rest of urban Newtownabbey; South and West are adjusted slightly to get within quota.  Lagan Valley is abolished and carved up between Strangford (which I'd rename Mid Down as it's much less focussed on the Lough) and South Antrim (which I'd rename Lisburn & South Antrim).  North Antrim loses its northern parts to East Londonderry (renamed Causeway Coast) and is renamed Mid Antrim.

There are a few rough edges but I don't think it's too bad.

Off-hand:

1. Places part of the southern shore of Lough Foyle in with Tyrone(!?!).
2. Splits towns like Bangor, Lurgan unnecessarily.
3. Newtownards left almost as an exclave of the seat to which it belongs.
4. The Glens of Antrim get lumped into a seat with Carrickfergus.

Another attempt trying to minimise unnecessary disruption:

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Fermanagh and South Tyrone (73,455): As before, except for tidying up of ward boundaries.
Newry and Armagh (71,959): Loses Loughgall and Tandragee to Upper Bann.
Upper Bann (73,471): Gains Loughgall and Tandragee, retains Aghagallon (which comes into Lurgan town), but loses Banbridge and the west Down wards along the A1.
South Down (72,705): Follows the boundary between the council areas in the west, losing Rathfriland, but gains Ballynahinch and Killyleagh from Strangford (you could reverse this swap to prioritise no change over maintaining council boundaries).
West Tyrone (70,686): Gains the most rural end of the old Derry council around Park and Claudy.
Foyle (71,814): Retains the Lough Foyle shoreline along the A2 (including Ballykelly from the old Limavady council).
Mid Ulster (73,777): Expands northwards to take Dungiven, Garvagh and Kilrea from East LondonDerry.
Causeway Coast and Glens (76,090): The remainder of the old East LondonDerry, supplemented by Ballymoney and the Glens from North and East Antrim.
Mid Antrim (77,159): A reworked North Antrim, taking Antrim town and points west from South Antrim, and losing its northernmost fringe.
East Antrim (72,904): Loses Cushendall in the north, but gains Ballyclare and sees an attempted tidying-up of wards on the northern edges of Newtownabbey (Jordanstown and Mossley).
North Down (73,444): Loses Holywood but gains the rest of the Ards Peninsula.
Belfast East and Newtownards (73,177): Belfast has to expand somewhere to retain four seats and adding in Holywood and Newtownards (Dundonald is already in East Belfast) seems logical. Loses a swathe of territory (Cregagh, Castlereagh proper) to South Belfast to compensate.
Belfast North (72,085): Gains territory from South Antrim around Mallusk and Glengormley and sees its southern border move north to the Crumlin Road, losing all of the Shankill and New Lodge to West Belfast.
Belfast West (72,135): Gains territory from North Belfast.
South Antrim and Lisburn (71,953): Pushed southward from Antrim town, Ballyclare and the north Belfast fringes, and takes Lisburn and the towns in north-west Down along the M1.
Belfast South (72,907): Loses Carryduff and Cairnshill to Mid Down but gains a swathe of south-east Belfast.
Mid Down (73,648): The leftovers. Contains Banbridge and Dromore along the A1, Carryduff and Saintfield along the A7, along with Comber and Ballygowan along the lough shore. Essentially outer commuter country and farming.

Yes, those are most of the "rough edges" I mentioned.  (Also I wasn't very happy with the boundary round Lisburn.)  I wasn't that bothered about the Glens/Carrickfergus thing as it keeps being proposed and some of the Glens are already in East Antrim.

Your plan looks good if it's OK with people in Newtownards to add them to a Belfast seat.

I think I can make mine look considerably better outside Belfast if I'm allowed to take one more ward currently in West Belfast and move it to South; East then no longer needs to go so far into North Down and so all of Newtownards can go into Mid Down, with knock-on benefits further west.  None of the options look very good, though: Falls? Twinbrook?

(It's also easier if I stop trying to get everything within 5% of the UK quota.  There's some ambiguity about to what extent this is necessary.)

If you use the more variable quota, the seats formed are much more smooth.

In all honesty, I can see this review being abandoned once the provisional results are published. The government have an idea of what they think this review will be like and the rules it needs but the end result will always end up being not what they expected (with no lessons learned from the last review). If they go ahead with it, they will also presume that the following review will see a few wards moving here and there rather than the potential to have to redraw every seat every few years.

The BCE has published the minutes of its meeting with representatives of the political parties. My summary is:

1. While the BCS and BCW will take into account the proposals from the Zombie Review, the BCE won't.
2. There is likely to be ward splitting
3. Wards will be split into polling districts
4. More use will be made of electronic communication over 'hard copy' communication
5. Provisional proposals will be released in the autumn
6. There would be public meetings as before
7. Allocated slots would be given at the public meeting to representatives of the Conservatives, Labour, LibDem, Green, and UKIP