Notionals 2005 confirmed

[minionofmidas]

Dwyfor Meirionydd and Arfon please.

[minionofmidas]

Thought so. Plaid's the strongest party across all three districts (unless turnout varies widely). Add in that the most rural one, Dwyfor Meironydd, actually has the highest population, and the area's new districts are basically an anti-Plaid gerrymander.

[minionofmidas]

and the area's new districts are basically an anti-Plaid gerrymander.

No more so than the current constituencies are a pro-Plaid gerrymander

Didn't say that, didn't say that at all...

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Well... there's a toy train link...

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Quite possibly, although that makes the current map worse rather than better - if the notionals were correct, the seat were a complete tossup.

The new Aberconwy seat was of course pretty much forced on the commission by the "notional counties" passed by parliament... but they could have balanced the population between Arfon and Dwyfor (Dwyfor? Why not Meirionydd & Lleyn?) better - there's really no reason why Arfon and Aberconwy should be the two smallest electorates south of Skye, and quite a bit smaller than their more remote neighbor.
Which, of course, would have meant moving part of the Lleyn into Arfon... I don't know quite enough about the area to be 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure that would be enough to turn it into a notional PC seat again.

[minionofmidas]

Indeed, for Arfon it's a reappearance on the electoral map for the first time since 1910!

Boundaries are different though; the old Arfon stretched out to the eastern bank of the Conwy and didn't include Caernarfon or Bangor, which were in David Lloyd George's Caernarvon Boroughs.
IIRC Arfon and Dwyfor were rock-solid Liberal seats, while Boroughs was a swing constituency until Lloyd George took it.

I was aware of the former Arfon (created when Caernarffonshire went from two to three), but I seem to recall the third seat was called Eifion.

[minionofmidas]

Merionnydd has very little in common with the affluent (for rural Wales) Conwy Valley, and transport linkes between the two areas are pretty much non-existent (and in the winter you can often delete "pretty much" from that). The idea that the Ffestiniog area has anything in common with Betwys-y-coed is just daft.

Come to think of that... while Betws is a tourist town o/c, the country around it is sparsely populated, mostly welsh speaking, and ex slate quarrying. (And very pretty.) I'm not sure where the boundaries went exactly though...

[minionofmidas]

The old slate mining (what's left of the industry these days is quarrying, but there are some very deep mines in places) area is, largely, west of Betwys.

Yeah, that's basically the area I've been to there.

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I know that.

[minionofmidas]

The map sort of makes it look as if part of the town was in Merioneth, doesn't it?

[minionofmidas]

Maps (like the one we've had of Dwyfor Meirionydd) of Clwyd South and Clwyd West?

[minionofmidas]

That one ward out of Montgomery gets shifted out IIRC?

[minionofmidas]

Yep, the easternmost (pre-74) district of Meironydd has been in Clwyd ever since.

[minionofmidas]

Yep, the easternmost (pre-74) district of Meironydd has been in Clwyd ever since.

Well not quite; Clywd was abolished in 1995. It's currently in (gags) Denbighshire...

The notional county of Clwyd for redistricting purposes, though.

[minionofmidas]

Yep, the easternmost (pre-74) district of Meironydd has been in Clwyd ever since.

Well not quite; Clywd was abolished in 1995. It's currently in (gags) Denbighshire...

The notional county of Clwyd for redistricting purposes, though.

Heh; true. Here's a question for you... in the '04 locals, one Labour candidate in what will be the Arfon constituency ran unopposed. Guess which part of the constituency his ward his in.

Bethesda?

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, at first I was going to say "one of those Lleyn wards I proposed to shift into the constituency", but then I noticed these wouldn't qualify.