UK parliamentary boundary review 2016-2018

[YL]

So they're still going to reduce the House's size to 600? That's terrible.

Yes, the reduction in size to 600 was set by the Act passed in 2011 so the proposals will be based on that unless new primary legislation is passed to repeal that bit.

It is possible that the proposals might be rejected again, though.  (In which case the current boundaries will continue to be used.)

We do have another thread on this:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=212480.0

[YL]

Nicholas Whyte's take:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-37280113

Three Belfast seats.  East better for Alliance than the current seat, SW safe Sinn Féin, NW marginal but commentators seem to be favouring Sinn Féin.

Four County Down seats (the six counties seem to have been the template for much of this).  "Strangford", South Down and North Down little changed and likely to be safe for their current incumbents, and a new West Down seat containing parts of the existing Lagan Valley and Upper Bann plus some Belfast fringe, which would be a DUP seat.  Said Belfast fringe is uglily split between West Down and Strangford.

Newry & Armagh little changed, safe SF.  Upper Bann extends into Tyrone, taking most of Dungannon, and becomes Upper Bann & Blackwater; Whyte gives this to the DUP but it may be close with SF.

In the west Fermanagh & South Tyrone contains further west bits of Tyrone than currently and will presumably still be close although a bit better for SF.  The rest of West Tyrone takes in bits of Mid Ulster, which is abolished, and becomes North Tyrone, still safe SF.  Foyle is little changed so still presumably SDLP, and East Londonderry loses Coleraine, gains Magherafelt, presumably flipping it to SF, and becomes "Glenshane", named after the pass on the A6 Belfast-Derry road.  (This name also appeared in the zombie review.)

Coleraine merges with most of North Antrim minus Ballymena to become "Dalriada"; who knows how David Dimbleby will pronounce that, but it's still DUP.  East Antrim moves back southwards towards Belfast, South Antrim also moves south taking in the Antrim parts of Lisburn, and a new West Antrim appears containing Ballymena and areas to its south.  The UUP probably lose out here, with South Antrim flipping back to the DUP.

[YL]

The England proposals are out.

http://www.bce2018.org.uk/

You can click on any region in "Search by Region" and it will take you to a map, and from there you can scroll and view constituencies throughout England.  You can also have the existing constituency boundary and/or "local authorities" (at the UA/borough level) superimposed, and even remove the proposed lines.  The report for the region you selected is linked to above the map (I just noticed that).

I don't know if the BCE was loath to divide wards or what but in West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire there's a lot of crossing borough lines, and two constituencies crossing the West Yorkshire-South Yorkshire boundary (one Kirklees-Barnsley (not the name, I haven't looked at those yet) and one Wakefield-Barnsley), and two crossing the West Yorkshire-North Yorkshire boundary (both Wakefield-Selby).

They've really gone too far with this not dividing wards thing.  There's no way should a city have one of its seats disconnected by road, as "Sheffield Hallam & Stocksbridge" is, stretching round from Beauchief & Greenhill to Penistone East.  Indeed, with the exception of Stannington/Stocksbridge, none of the pairs of neighbouring wards in it really go together.  (They don't know what "Hallam" means either.)

But these proposals aren't just terrible because they won't divide wards.  The North East doesn't have particularly big wards in general, and the proposals there are utterly dreadful.  Middlesbrough is split into three, and they've even managed to split little Barnard Castle.  Ashington wouldn't be the direction I'd look to expand Berwick in, either.

[YL]

My favourite seat is probably Birmingham Ladywood: eastern Smethwick through to the Castle Vale estate on the far side of the city in one long bizarre loop!

Although special award for managing to not name the seat that includes the centre of Wolverhampton for Wolverhampton but for two smaller towns!!!!!!

At the moment I'm struggling to break a three way tie for worst constituency between Sheffield Hallam & Stocksbridge, Brum Ladywood and West Durham & Teesdale.

[YL]

Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report has come up with the following estimates

Conservatives 320 seats (including the Speaker) -27 proportionally
Labour 203 seats -22 proportionally
Liberal Democrats 3 seats -4 proportionally
United Kingdom Independence Party 1 unchanged
Plaid Cymru 3 seats unchanged

The suggestion is that Caroline Lucas would not win Brighton North (Con 32%, Lab 31%, Green 27%)

Not exactly; the suggestion is that those were the figures in the wards making it up in 2015.  Had it existed, it's quite likely the distribution of Labour and Green votes would have been different and that Lucas would have won.

Similarly with the appalling Sheffield Hallam & Stocksbridge: it's notionally Labour, but it's likely that had it existed and Nick Clegg been the candidate that many Tory voters in the added wards would have voted tactically for him, and there are a fair number of Tories in Penistone East in particular, so I don't think you can be confident that Clegg would have lost.