UK General Election, 2017 - Election Day and Results Thread

[thumb21]

Electoral Calculus have done an analysis of how the results would have looked on the provisional 2018 boundaries.

Headline figure: C 298 Lab 245 SNP 32 SF 9 DUP 7 LD 7 PC 1 Ind 1 Grn 0, which is three seats short of a majority for the Conservatives but enough to govern alone as the combined opposition without Sinn Fein is only 293 seats.

Ugh, of f**king course it would help the Tories.

What are the odds that this abomination ever comes to pass now that the Tories don't have a majority on their own?

Probably not high because these boundaries really hurt the DUP.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Electoral Calculus have done an analysis of how the results would have looked on the provisional 2018 boundaries.

Headline figure: C 298 Lab 245 SNP 32 SF 9 DUP 7 LD 7 PC 1 Ind 1 Grn 0, which is three seats short of a majority for the Conservatives but enough to govern alone as the combined opposition without Sinn Fein is only 293 seats.

Ugh, of f**king course it would help the Tories.

What are the odds that this abomination ever comes to pass now that the Tories don't have a majority on their own?

Probably not high because these boundaries really hurt the DUP.

But would that mean they'll just change the NI boundaries while leaving the GB ones unchanged?

[MaxQue]

Electoral Calculus have done an analysis of how the results would have looked on the provisional 2018 boundaries.

Headline figure: C 298 Lab 245 SNP 32 SF 9 DUP 7 LD 7 PC 1 Ind 1 Grn 0, which is three seats short of a majority for the Conservatives but enough to govern alone as the combined opposition without Sinn Fein is only 293 seats.

Ugh, of f**king course it would help the Tories.

What are the odds that this abomination ever comes to pass now that the Tories don't have a majority on their own?

Almost none, as the only other party gaining from it is SF. DUP is a big loser from it.

[Zinneke]

Does anybody know wat will happen to the SDLP and whether Fianna Fail will run in the next election to capture the soft nationalist vote?

[Antonio the Sixth]

whether Fianna Fail will run in the next election to capture the soft nationalist vote?

oh god please no

[IceAgeComing]

Electoral Calculus have done an analysis of how the results would have looked on the provisional 2018 boundaries.

Headline figure: C 298 Lab 245 SNP 32 SF 9 DUP 7 LD 7 PC 1 Ind 1 Grn 0, which is three seats short of a majority for the Conservatives but enough to govern alone as the combined opposition without Sinn Fein is only 293 seats.

Ugh, of f**king course it would help the Tories.

What are the odds that this abomination ever comes to pass now that the Tories don't have a majority on their own?

Probably not high because these boundaries really hurt the DUP.

But would that mean they'll just change the NI boundaries while leaving the GB ones unchanged?

The calls of gerrymandering would be sky high if they did that - it's just not the done thing.  I assume that they'll change the rules to a position that the DUP would like and restart the review - but that sort of thing would also be very popular with the other parties since they'd probably go back to something like the old rules.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Electoral Calculus have done an analysis of how the results would have looked on the provisional 2018 boundaries.

Headline figure: C 298 Lab 245 SNP 32 SF 9 DUP 7 LD 7 PC 1 Ind 1 Grn 0, which is three seats short of a majority for the Conservatives but enough to govern alone as the combined opposition without Sinn Fein is only 293 seats.

Ugh, of f**king course it would help the Tories.

What are the odds that this abomination ever comes to pass now that the Tories don't have a majority on their own?

Probably not high because these boundaries really hurt the DUP.

But would that mean they'll just change the NI boundaries while leaving the GB ones unchanged?

The calls of gerrymandering would be sky high if they did that - it's just not the done thing.  I assume that they'll change the rules to a position that the DUP would like and restart the review - but that sort of thing would also be very popular with the other parties since they'd probably go back to something like the old rules.

That's very relieving to know.

Does that also mean we'd return to 650 seats?

[IceAgeComing]

Who really knows?  That's just based on the assumption that the DUP will sink the review (the early calculations I've seen for the new boundaries would have the seats split 9 Sinn Fein/7 DUP which they clearly don't want - can't say for sure though) and considering that the current seats are based on 2003 electorates with Wales having a representation bonus that everyone promised to get rid of seven years ago, they'll need to do something.  My assumption is that they'll amend the bill to make it something like 650 seats and a 10% margin of error which would fix most of the problems that the bill has (letting the commission go a little higher or a little lower in terms of seats would be even better, doubt that will happen though) and restarting everything would probably be preferred - although who knows if we even have time for that to go through this parliament...

Another reason that the review might be stopped now is simply the massive increase in the electorate since they started the review - they're using electorate sizes from right after the introduction of individual voter registration when the electorate was deflated quite a bit - and before the European referendum and this election engaged people to actually register.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Honestly, 10% is a really high deviation, and I could see it increasing the chance of an undemocratic outcome quite a bit. I'd say 5% is the maximum that can be tolerated (when I draw districts myself I usually try to stay within 1%). But yeah, most important is keeping the solid levels of representativeness that 650 seats allow, or at least not going backwards.

[Leftbehind]

Yorks. & Humber

https://imgur.com/a/fQIVt

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[MaxQue]

Honestly, 10% is a really high deviation, and I could see it increasing the chance of an undemocratic outcome quite a bit. I'd say 5% is the maximum that can be tolerated (when I draw districts myself I usually try to stay within 1%). But yeah, most important is keeping the solid levels of representativeness that 650 seats allow, or at least not going backwards.

5% is really hard in UK. They use wards as building blocks, which building 75k constituencies from block ranging from 1000 (rural districts) to 15000 (large cities). Try to make it at 1% deviation with 10000 inhabitants bulding blocks.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Honestly, 10% is a really high deviation, and I could see it increasing the chance of an undemocratic outcome quite a bit. I'd say 5% is the maximum that can be tolerated (when I draw districts myself I usually try to stay within 1%). But yeah, most important is keeping the solid levels of representativeness that 650 seats allow, or at least not going backwards.

5% is really hard in UK. They use wards as building blocks, which building 75k constituencies from block ranging from 1000 (rural districts) to 15000 (large cities). Try to make it at 1% deviation with 10000 inhabitants bulding blocks.

Well, they should collect more fine-grained data.

[Blair]

The boundary review process is generally a sh**t storm for parties; the tories have a pledge that no Tory MP would lose a seat they can win (e.g if your seat gets abolished you get parachuted somewhere else) It generally requires a lot of work by the Whips, and endless amounts of trading.

I can't see them touching it when they're currently saying the Queens Speech is going to be delayed

[Terry the Fat Shark]

There are some papers this morning suggesting that Sinn Fein is actually considering taking their seats if Corbyn offers an Ireland unification referendum? Is there any merit to this or just the tabloids??

[Gary J]

Honestly, 10% is a really high deviation, and I could see it increasing the chance of an undemocratic outcome quite a bit. I'd say 5% is the maximum that can be tolerated (when I draw districts myself I usually try to stay within 1%). But yeah, most important is keeping the solid levels of representativeness that 650 seats allow, or at least not going backwards.

5% is really hard in UK. They use wards as building blocks, which building 75k constituencies from block ranging from 1000 (rural districts) to 15000 (large cities). Try to make it at 1% deviation with 10000 inhabitants bulding blocks.

Well, they should collect more fine-grained data.

No doubt the Boundary Commissions could abandon the traditional way of combining whole wards, so as to tighten up the potential range of constituency electorates, but this would double down on the features of the current boundary change system which British parties tend to object to.

[GlobeSoc]

There are some papers this morning suggesting that Sinn Fein is actually considering taking their seats if Corbyn offers an Ireland unification referendum? Is there any merit to this or just the tabloids??

The math doesn't really work for that. It's probably tabloids being tabloids.

[Leftbehind]

There are some papers this morning suggesting that Sinn Fein is actually considering taking their seats if Corbyn offers an Ireland unification referendum? Is there any merit to this or just the tabloids??

That'd be quite the departure of what they've been insisting these recent weeks.

I don't think many Brits would be particularly be bothered by such a poll, but it could risk enraging the unionists. Having said that, even another 7 seats would just mean a stronger opposition for Corbyn, so it's high-risk for not much benefit.

[Leftbehind]

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

[IceAgeComing]

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This actually isn't very surprising: the trend with this question in the past is that supporters of the government tend to not want an election while supporters of the main opposition party do.  Considering that Labour are leading in the polls now...

[Leftbehind]

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This actually isn't very surprising: the trend with this question in the past is that supporters of the government tend to not want an election while supporters of the main opposition party do.  Considering that Labour are leading in the polls now...

Of course, but we haven't actually had a VI poll from YouGov (or anyone else besides Survation, for that matter). This lends weight to Survation's Lab 6-point lead.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I actually hope there isn't another election soon. In fact, I'd love for that Parliament to stick around until 2022, if there's a possibility. Labour is in an ideal spot right now: having regained momentum and established itself as a credible opposition while the Tories have to manage a difficult international situation with an ungovernable Parliament. Whatever comes to change things now would only weaken its hands: if it gains more seats, it will be in the difficult situation of forming a coalition with the LibDems and the SNP, which I can't see working very well, and would now be responsible for the Brexit negotiations. If they lose seats, then the Tories regain their majority and can resume carrying out their disastrous agenda. The best thing to do is sit and wait while the Tories self-destruct.

[joevsimp]

There are some papers this morning suggesting that Sinn Fein is actually considering taking their seats if Corbyn offers an Ireland unification referendum? Is there any merit to this or just the tabloids??

That'd be quite the departure of what they've been insisting these recent weeks.

I don't think many Brits would be particularly be bothered by such a poll, but it could risk enraging the unionists. Having said that, even another 7 seats would just mean a stronger opposition for Corbyn, so it's high-risk for not much benefit.

plus the merest sniff of this actually happening would get the DUP into coalition with the Tories even quicker.  softly softly catchey monkey

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean, yes, it is. Al or another British poster can correct me if I'm wrong, but, but I really think it boils down to the fact that class is still, if not the, at least one of the defining factors of British political cleavages. It might have been a bit less true this time around (although Al actually suggested earlier that Labour actually made major gains in some working-class areas), but it's still way truer than it ever was in the US.

Class is a major factor in determining party preference etc in much of the country, but it has become increasingly hard to define and measure in statistical terms due to the transition towards a service-dominated economy. This is a problem that the polling industry and the political science community stubbornly refuse to deal with, preferring instead to insist that class simply doesn't matter much now because they're lazy and don't want to have to do hard work. Which is a tricky thing to reconcile with actual existing voting patterns.

A comment I made elsewhere:

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What is also notable is that there are striking house effects from polling firms in terms of what patterns relating to the above system are shown; this is really not a good sign as regards its usefulness.