It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
I'd be curious how many "safe seats" have switched hands since 1996.
Almost every single Scottish and LD seat for starters, as well as many supposedly safe Tory seats in 1997 and many supposedly safe Labour ones since 2010.
Gerrymandering is a particular feature for single member FPTP systems.
In the UK, Instead of adapting the boundaries to fit a single member seat, we could simply set the number of MPs to fit the boundaries of a city or county. For example, everyone knows where the boundary of Cornwall is, on the River Tamar. In 2019 with six single member seats Cornwall got six Conservatives. With fair voting system the result would be more like 3-4 Tories, 1-2 Labour, 1 Lib Dem. As it is 47% of the votes in Cornwall are ignored and 53% of the vote gets 100% of the power. The same applies in reverse in Merseyside, with 14 of the 15 seats held by Labour, despite the other parties getting over a third of the vote.
That is a fixed system and eventually it will blow up in the faces of the self serving politicos who prefer the convenience (for them) of safe seats instead of a genuinely competitive election.
Much of the polarisation of British politics can be put down to the safe seats, and in truth if all seats were competitive then the standard of politics and of politicians in Britain might well be a lot higher. If only Margaret Thatcher had beleived in a free market in politics then the added competition might have solved many of the problems that we face today.
I agree. Multimember STV seats would have much more natural boundaries.
Safe seats make for bad politics. We cannot "chuck them out" for being useless drones when they are in safe seats, only the parties can by deselection, so we wind up with party hacks gifted with permanent jobs.
Gerrymandering is a particular feature for single member FPTP systems.
In the UK, Instead of adapting the boundaries to fit a single member seat, we could simply set the number of MPs to fit the boundaries of a city or county. For example, everyone knows where the boundary of Cornwall is, on the River Tamar. In 2019 with six single member seats Cornwall got six Conservatives. With fair voting system the result would be more like 3-4 Tories, 1-2 Labour, 1 Lib Dem. As it is 47% of the votes in Cornwall are ignored and 53% of the vote gets 100% of the power. The same applies in reverse in Merseyside, with 14 of the 15 seats held by Labour, despite the other parties getting over a third of the vote.
That is a fixed system and eventually it will blow up in the faces of the self serving politicos who prefer the convenience (for them) of safe seats instead of a genuinely competitive election.
Much of the polarisation of British politics can be put down to the safe seats, and in truth if all seats were competitive then the standard of politics and of politicians in Britain might well be a lot higher. If only Margaret Thatcher had beleived in a free market in politics then the added competition might have solved many of the problems that we face today.
I agree. Multimember STV seats would have much more natural boundaries.
Safe seats make for bad politics. We cannot "chuck them out" for being useless drones when they are in safe seats, only the parties can by deselection, so we wind up with party hacks gifted with permanent jobs.
What's a safe seat?
Hartlepool?
I particularly enjoyed the fact that it was Peter Mandleson's seat, someone who may well have been v good at politics but was someone who had something of the night about him and completely untrustworthy.
Taking Mr B2's point, it's often argued that rivers are natural boundaries, whereas sometimes they provide areas with a community of interests. And there are some rather strange boundaries in this part of Essex.
Particularly Chelmsford when Dan Lawrence is setting up a declaration.
Well observed. Thought you'd have been concentrating on marking at the moment, though!
There is a limit to how much marking you can do (and incidentally 11 and 13 are sitting twice as many exams as normal on average and we’re having to mark them all, without extra pay) before checking the cricket score.
OFQUAL have given so much confused guidance that teachers have publicly and quite seriously asked if they are smoking weed. They have said we must complete rigorous assessments, to use as evidence, but we shouldn’t set lots of exams. I mean come off it...
And there’s now a move to refuse to pay exam boards this year on the grounds they are doing fuck all but charging the same amount of money for doing it.
The situation is a shambles. Can you blame me for wanting to admire Lawrence’s batting for five minutes?
The position is similar in Scotland. They cancelled the national exams but then produced papers which schools are allowed to "tweak" to take out areas that they haven't covered. These exam papers are of course already being shared and debated on various social media as there is no longer a set exam day for all schools. Many schools, dare I suggest the one's who didn't take remote learning nearly seriously enough, are incredibly upset that their kids are going to be assessed after all as are the children who were promised A's without the need to actually learn anything.
I suppose if Swinney had worked really, really hard (this is of course a fantasy) and combined his efforts with those of Williamson's spider (surely the key decision maker south of the border) they could have come up with a worse system. Personally I am not sure that I have the imagination but these people have some remarkable talents in that respect at least.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Manufactured ignorance like that adds very little to the debate.
If you are selected as Labour candidate for Bootle or Tory candidate for Sevenoaks, I’d say your job is as good as sewn up for life. Your voters will never be canvassed and will count themselves lucky if they ever see an election leaflet, probably just the one delivered by the Royal Mail at taxpayers’ expense.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Really don't know who flagged this, I can assure you it wasn't me. Of course being the Labour MP for Hartlepool used to have incredible job security until...it didn't. Things can change over time particularly when parties lose contact with what their traditional supporters want but there are still an awful lot of seats that don't change hands even in a very bad year for the party. It's artificial to pretend otherwise. In my view such seats make something of a mockery of the democratic process and discourage participation.
Trouble is , if you made (even if possible) every seat marginal , on small overall swings you would get huge majorities.Personally i dont see a problem with safe seats . If the people in those seats are happy with the Mp and the party they represent that is good isnt it? They actually have more of a mandate in that seat than in a marginally won one
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Manufactured ignorance like that adds very little to the debate.
If you are selected as Labour candidate for Bootle or Tory candidate for Sevenoaks, I’d say your job is as good as sewn up for life. Your voters will never be canvassed and will count themselves lucky if they ever see an election leaflet, probably just the one delivered by the Royal Mail at taxpayers’ expense.
Yes, in Leicester we have 3 safe Labour seats, in Leics 6 safe Tory seats, only Loughborough ever changes. So we don't get either active campaigns or a slice of the pork barrel being doled out in marginals. It is bad politics. Not least because much of the county works in the city, and vice versa.
What a defeatist view of politics. Every seat in the country is up for grabs.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Manufactured ignorance like that adds very little to the debate.
If you are selected as Labour candidate for Bootle or Tory candidate for Sevenoaks, I’d say your job is as good as sewn up for life. Your voters will never be canvassed and will count themselves lucky if they ever see an election leaflet, probably just the one delivered by the Royal Mail at taxpayers’ expense.
Yes, in Leicester we have 3 safe Labour seats, in Leics 6 safe Tory seats, only Loughborough ever changes. So we don't get either active campaigns or a slice of the pork barrel being doled out in marginals. It is bad politics. Not least because much of the county works in the city, and vice versa.
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
And we are back to a massive database which knows everything about us...
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Manufactured ignorance like that adds very little to the debate.
If you are selected as Labour candidate for Bootle or Tory candidate for Sevenoaks, I’d say your job is as good as sewn up for life. Your voters will never be canvassed and will count themselves lucky if they ever see an election leaflet, probably just the one delivered by the Royal Mail at taxpayers’ expense.
Yes, in Leicester we have 3 safe Labour seats, in Leics 6 safe Tory seats, only Loughborough ever changes. So we don't get either active campaigns or a slice of the pork barrel being doled out in marginals. It is bad politics. Not least because much of the county works in the city, and vice versa.
What a defeatist view of politics. Every seat in the country is up for grabs.
Well said.
I wonder how Parliament would look if parties gave up in supposedly safe seats like Hartlepool, Sedgefield and Scotland.
Just watching last night's Sky News paper review, which featured the PM's sister. All she seems to be interested in is the ability of people to go on holiday.
I bet the PM's been listening to her.
The Prime Minister himself is a summer and skiing holiday man, as is common in well-off families. And probably most ordinary families will look forward to a summer break. Mustique 2019 was by no means the first time Boris had packed his bucket and spade.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Really don't know who flagged this, I can assure you it wasn't me. Of course being the Labour MP for Hartlepool used to have incredible job security until...it didn't. Things can change over time particularly when parties lose contact with what their traditional supporters want but there are still an awful lot of seats that don't change hands even in a very bad year for the party. It's artificial to pretend otherwise. In my view such seats make something of a mockery of the democratic process and discourage participation.
Trouble is , if you made (even if possible) every seat marginal , on small overall swings you would get huge majorities.Personally i dont see a problem with safe seats . If the people in those seats are happy with the Mp and the party they represent that is good isnt it? They actually have more of a mandate in that seat than in a marginally won one
You are assuming that all seats would swing the same way which was very much not the case with the B word, for example. And the people who don't support the majority view in a safe seat are effectively disenfranchised. But I do accept that you can make arguments in either direction.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Really don't know who flagged this, I can assure you it wasn't me. Of course being the Labour MP for Hartlepool used to have incredible job security until...it didn't. Things can change over time particularly when parties lose contact with what their traditional supporters want but there are still an awful lot of seats that don't change hands even in a very bad year for the party. It's artificial to pretend otherwise. In my view such seats make something of a mockery of the democratic process and discourage participation.
Trouble is , if you made (even if possible) every seat marginal , on small overall swings you would get huge majorities.Personally i dont see a problem with safe seats . If the people in those seats are happy with the Mp and the party they represent that is good isnt it? They actually have more of a mandate in that seat than in a marginally won one
You are assuming that all seats would swing the same way which was very much not the case with the B word, for example. And the people who don't support the majority view in a safe seat are effectively disenfranchised. But I do accept that you can make arguments in either direction.
They're not disenfranchised, they just lose. They still cast a vote and its still counted and one day if they can convince their neighbours to agree with them, they can win and another set of voters lose instead.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Manufactured ignorance like that adds very little to the debate.
If you are selected as Labour candidate for Bootle or Tory candidate for Sevenoaks, I’d say your job is as good as sewn up for life. Your voters will never be canvassed and will count themselves lucky if they ever see an election leaflet, probably just the one delivered by the Royal Mail at taxpayers’ expense.
I am sure someone said that about Sedgefield or even Hartlepool at one time.....
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
When you see useless no mark clowns like Murdo who have lost 8 elections, coined in 7 figure sums and done the square root of nothing you realise the crappy Holyrood voting system is as bad if not much worse than FPTP. Just down to who your pals are in the "leadership".
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
I'd be curious how many "safe seats" have switched hands since 1996.
Almost every single Scottish and LD seat for starters, as well as many supposedly safe Tory seats in 1997 and many supposedly safe Labour ones since 2010.
None in Leicester/Leics, apart from when the LDs briefly took Leicester South in a by-election.
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
And we are back to a massive database which knows everything about us...
Some splice and dice by age would fix the problem of differential turnout and the inverted population period. Tyranny of the majority as de Tocqueville called it
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
When you see useless no mark clowns like Murdo who have lost 8 elections, coined in 7 figure sums and done the square root of nothing you realise the crappy Holyrood voting system is as bad if not much worse than FPTP. Just down to who your pals are in the "leadership".
Agreed, PR is worse than FPTP.
Under FPTP you need to win, which is a remarkably brutal system when the electorate moves on, as shown in eg Scotland 2015 or Red Wall 2019.
Under PR it doesn't matter if you win or don't, you get a seat anyway. Which is why those who support parties that don't win constituencies are so desperate to get it.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Manufactured ignorance like that adds very little to the debate.
If you are selected as Labour candidate for Bootle or Tory candidate for Sevenoaks, I’d say your job is as good as sewn up for life. Your voters will never be canvassed and will count themselves lucky if they ever see an election leaflet, probably just the one delivered by the Royal Mail at taxpayers’ expense.
Yes, in Leicester we have 3 safe Labour seats, in Leics 6 safe Tory seats, only Loughborough ever changes. So we don't get either active campaigns or a slice of the pork barrel being doled out in marginals. It is bad politics. Not least because much of the county works in the city, and vice versa.
Gerrymandering is a particular feature for single member FPTP systems.
In the UK, Instead of adapting the boundaries to fit a single member seat, we could simply set the number of MPs to fit the boundaries of a city or county. For example, everyone knows where the boundary of Cornwall is, on the River Tamar. In 2019 with six single member seats Cornwall got six Conservatives. With fair voting system the result would be more like 3-4 Tories, 1-2 Labour, 1 Lib Dem. As it is 47% of the votes in Cornwall are ignored and 53% of the vote gets 100% of the power. The same applies in reverse in Merseyside, with 14 of the 15 seats held by Labour, despite the other parties getting over a third of the vote.
That is a fixed system and eventually it will blow up in the faces of the self serving politicos who prefer the convenience (for them) of safe seats instead of a genuinely competitive election.
Much of the polarisation of British politics can be put down to the safe seats, and in truth if all seats were competitive then the standard of politics and of politicians in Britain might well be a lot higher. If only Margaret Thatcher had beleived in a free market in politics then the added competition might have solved many of the problems that we face today.
I agree. Multimember STV seats would have much more natural boundaries.
Safe seats make for bad politics. We cannot "chuck them out" for being useless drones when they are in safe seats, only the parties can by deselection, so we wind up with party hacks gifted with permanent jobs.
What's a safe seat?
Hartlepool?
Harborough, Melton and Rutland, Charnwood, Leics South, Hinckley and Bosworth etc etc.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
When you see useless no mark clowns like Murdo who have lost 8 elections, coined in 7 figure sums and done the square root of nothing you realise the crappy Holyrood voting system is as bad if not much worse than FPTP. Just down to who your pals are in the "leadership".
A pal of mine, a former list MSP for Lothian who was dropped down the list because he didn't kowtow adequately to the leadership, is a good example of the deficiencies of a system that gives far too much power to party bosses. This is why I for one have reservations about PR type systems.
I have voted in 10 General Elections in 5 different seats. In none of these has an MP changed as a result. All have been safe seats for one or other party.
Mr. Thompson, in the first election I voted, this seat had a 10k Labour majority. Forget the precise Conservative majority last time, but it was reasonably large.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
I'd be curious how many "safe seats" have switched hands since 1996.
Almost every single Scottish and LD seat for starters, as well as many supposedly safe Tory seats in 1997 and many supposedly safe Labour ones since 2010.
None in Leicester/Leics, apart from when the LDs briefly took Leicester South in a by-election.
According to Wiki 3 since 1996 have.
Leicester South which you named Loughborough which has gone from Safe Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, back to Safe Tory again (which rather belies the notion of it being safe). North West Leicestershire which has gone from Marginal Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, to Safe Tory.
Go further back and the Safe Labour seats Leicester East and Leicester South were Tory in 1983.
It's actually one of the few times when I think the change in direction is worthwhile. The only way we get everyone vaccinated is to continually tell them to do so and
1) there is a new strain of virus 2) we won't open up in June unless vaccination numbers improve
are valid arguments for doing so.
Not closing India off early can wait until the public inquiry.
Mr. Thompson, in the first election I voted, this seat had a 10k Labour majority. Forget the precise Conservative majority last time, but it was reasonably large.
Sure, demographic change does make for long term change, but we know that Westminster elections are decided in around 100 of our 650 constituencies, and nobody bothers with the rest.
One thing about referendums is that every vote counts equally, part of the reason for the discrepancy between Remain/Leave MPs and their constituents.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
I'd be curious how many "safe seats" have switched hands since 1996.
Almost every single Scottish and LD seat for starters, as well as many supposedly safe Tory seats in 1997 and many supposedly safe Labour ones since 2010.
None in Leicester/Leics, apart from when the LDs briefly took Leicester South in a by-election.
According to Wiki 3 since 1996 have.
Leicester South which you named Loughborough which has gone from Safe Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, back to Safe Tory again (which rather belies the notion of it being safe). North West Leicestershire which has gone from Marginal Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, to Safe Tory.
Go further back and the Safe Labour seats Leicester East and Leicester South were Tory in 1983.
As I pointed out Loughborough is the only real marginal in the 10 local seats.
I have voted in 10 General Elections in 5 different seats. In none of these has an MP changed as a result. All have been safe seats for one or other party.
Constituencies I've voted in
Bath - Safe LD for next election but somewhere the Tories have won in the past Coventry South - Normally safish Labour but the Conservatives have got close before Sheffield Central - Normally Labour but the Lib Dems have got close before, an area the Greens could potentially get in future NE Derbyshire & Bassetlaw - Both looked like safe Labour for years, now both safe Conservative for the forseeable future.
Now you might be able to guess who will win next time - LD, Lab, Lab, Con, Con but they've all changed hands in the past.
I have voted in 10 General Elections in 5 different seats. In none of these has an MP changed as a result. All have been safe seats for one or other party.
I used to vote in Putney my first Election was 1974 then 76 and so on and so forth. Since tgenI gave been in Tory seats my current one us impregnable.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
I'd be curious how many "safe seats" have switched hands since 1996.
Almost every single Scottish and LD seat for starters, as well as many supposedly safe Tory seats in 1997 and many supposedly safe Labour ones since 2010.
None in Leicester/Leics, apart from when the LDs briefly took Leicester South in a by-election.
According to Wiki 3 since 1996 have.
Leicester South which you named Loughborough which has gone from Safe Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, back to Safe Tory again (which rather belies the notion of it being safe). North West Leicestershire which has gone from Marginal Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, to Safe Tory.
Go further back and the Safe Labour seats Leicester East and Leicester South were Tory in 1983.
As I pointed out Loughborough is the only real marginal in the 10 local seats.
Northwest Leicestershire seems pretty bellwether too. It has a 37.9% majority for the Tories today, but was Labour 1997 - 2010* and had a 25.4% majority for Labour Co-Op in 1997.
If a seat can swing from 25.4% majority for one party, to a 37.9% majority for another, it rather belies the notion that there's such a thing as a safe seat.
* Ignoring the fact the MP died in 2009 and no by-election was held in the dying fag end days of Brown's government.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
When you see useless no mark clowns like Murdo who have lost 8 elections, coined in 7 figure sums and done the square root of nothing you realise the crappy Holyrood voting system is as bad if not much worse than FPTP. Just down to who your pals are in the "leadership".
A pal of mine, a former list MSP for Lothian who was dropped down the list because he didn't kowtow adequately to the leadership, is a good example of the deficiencies of a system that gives far too much power to party bosses. This is why I for one have reservations about PR type systems.
It seems to me that you have reservations about party list systems - nothing to do with PR as such.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
It's actually one of the few times when I think the change in direction is worthwhile. The only way we get everyone vaccinated is to continually tell them to do so and
1) there is a new strain of virus 2) we won't open up in June unless vaccination numbers improve
are valid arguments for doing so.
Not closing India off early can wait until the public inquiry.
The majority of hospitalisations for the India variant are vaccine refuseniks.
If people get the vaccine then the pandemic is over and the variant is irrelevant. If people don't get the vaccine then hospitalisations will continue.
Vaccinations have always been the end-game. Its the right story to talk about.
Taking Mr B2's point, it's often argued that rivers are natural boundaries, whereas sometimes they provide areas with a community of interests. And there are some rather strange boundaries in this part of Essex.
Particularly Chelmsford when Dan Lawrence is setting up a declaration.
Well observed. Thought you'd have been concentrating on marking at the moment, though!
There is a limit to how much marking you can do (and incidentally 11 and 13 are sitting twice as many exams as normal on average and we’re having to mark them all, without extra pay) before checking the cricket score.
OFQUAL have given so much confused guidance that teachers have publicly and quite seriously asked if they are smoking weed. They have said we must complete rigorous assessments, to use as evidence, but we shouldn’t set lots of exams. I mean come off it...
And there’s now a move to refuse to pay exam boards this year on the grounds they are doing fuck all but charging the same amount of money for doing it.
The situation is a shambles. Can you blame me for wanting to admire Lawrence’s batting for five minutes?
Grandson 2, at a Kent Grammar School, has just finished A levels, or at least the school run etc equivalent. As he understands it, and to be fair his main concern is getting them passed with good grades, is that the school are marking them, and having at least a sample re-marked, or at least reviewed elsewhere. TBH I didn't get the impression that he thought he'd done more papers than his predecessors. Granddaughter-in-law, who teaches Social Sciences to A level in an Essex comprehensive says much the same. Outside review especially for subjects where the school only has a small department of whatever.
Next grandchildren down are in year 10, so mock exams. One of them is in lockdown in Thailand, so did the exams at home. Quite reasonably grumbled that they'd been told that the exams they were having, and the way they were conducted, was to get them ready for Year 11's, but doing them at home didn't seem to fit with that!
And given the chance I'd be down to Chelmsford like a shot! My retirement present 18 years ago was a season ticket there.
It's all very well to attack the Americans for their weird systems, but in the UK in 2019 the SNP got 1.25 m votes and 48 seats; the LDs got 3.67 m votes and 11 seats.
Gerrymandering takes many forms. I am sure Nicola thinks something should be done about it.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
It's all very well to attack the Americans for their weird systems, but in the UK in 2019 the SNP got 1.25 m votes and 48 seats; the LDs got 3.67 m votes and 11 seats.
Gerrymandering takes many forms. I am sure Nicola thinks something should be done about it.
In 1992 in the Braintree constituency the Tory candidate, Tony Newton got twice the vote of the next nearest, Labour, candidate. In 1997 Alan Hurst, the Labour candidate won the seat. He held on in 2001 but lost it in 2005, and a major redrawing seems to have made it much safer for the Tories.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
I'd be curious how many "safe seats" have switched hands since 1996.
Almost every single Scottish and LD seat for starters, as well as many supposedly safe Tory seats in 1997 and many supposedly safe Labour ones since 2010.
None in Leicester/Leics, apart from when the LDs briefly took Leicester South in a by-election.
According to Wiki 3 since 1996 have.
Leicester South which you named Loughborough which has gone from Safe Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, back to Safe Tory again (which rather belies the notion of it being safe). North West Leicestershire which has gone from Marginal Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, to Safe Tory.
Go further back and the Safe Labour seats Leicester East and Leicester South were Tory in 1983.
As I pointed out Loughborough is the only real marginal in the 10 local seats.
Northwest Leicestershire seems pretty bellwether too. It has a 37.9% majority for the Tories today, but was Labour 1997 - 2010* and had a 25.4% majority for Labour Co-Op in 1997.
If a seat can swing from 25.4% majority for one party, to a 37.9% majority for another, it rather belies the notion that there's such a thing as a safe seat.
* Ignoring the fact the MP died in 2009 and no by-election was held in the dying fag end days of Brown's government.
10 seats in 10 General Elections in 40 years, and 7 have changed hand in them. So 93/100 safe seats, even counting Loughborough, which is a Bellwether.
It's actually one of the few times when I think the change in direction is worthwhile. The only way we get everyone vaccinated is to continually tell them to do so and
1) there is a new strain of virus 2) we won't open up in June unless vaccination numbers improve
are valid arguments for doing so.
Not closing India off early can wait until the public inquiry.
The majority of hospitalisations for the India variant are vaccine refuseniks.
If people get the vaccine then the pandemic is over and the variant is irrelevant. If people don't get the vaccine then hospitalisations will continue.
Vaccinations have always been the end-game. Its the right story to talk about.
5 live reported this morning that only 37% of the population in Bolton's main hotspot had been vaccinated, though most had qualified for it
Their local labour mp then went on to say it was because there were a lot of zero hours contracts and they had to travel a couple of miles to the vaccination centres
Under FPTP, voters vote on the basis of which individual they want to be their MP in a clear and defined community like, say, Cambridgeshire South-East (which naturally contains part of East Cambridgeshire and South Cambridgeshire, and other bits left over). The vote for an individual is modulated by the manifesto on which they stand.
It is why opinion polls cease to exist between elections, as no-one can be meaningfully asked them as they do not know who will stand at the next election (even the incumbent may stand down without much notice), or the manifestos the parties will produce.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
There is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be had about what counts as population. Possibilities would include:
the actual crude number ditto of 18+ the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
FPT - I think the Australia/NZ tariff "row" is a lot of fuss about almost nothing.
We had 7 years to transition away from Commonwealth preference on the way in, and now we're proposing 10 years to transition back to tarriff free on the way out.
Provided meat is properly labelled and it's clear where it came from, so consumers can make a choice, I'm totally relaxed about it. I don't think it threatens British farmers at all.
The big difference between OneWeb and Starlink, is that the former is going to be very much a B2B business, rather than B2C. OneWeb will be the backbone of BT broadband delivered to villages in the middle of nowhere.
It's interesting that the government gave RAF Space Command 400m quid to prevent Russian dominance in space and then subsidises the Russian space program to the tune of $50m/month by paying for Soyuz launches via their British Leyland in Space brainfart,
It's an interesting political game.
By saving OneWeb, the British government has saved the bacon of a number of European companies.
In addition, it is actually helping ESA move away from the Russians. Strange but true.
The Soyuz deal was supposed to be a way for ESA to offer cheap launch without having to do anything radical with the Ariane gravy train.
There is a (now dominant group within ESA/Ariane) that wants to replace the Soyuz deal with developing an EU cheap launch option. But for this to go ahead, they need to demonstrate payload volume. The collapse of OneWeb nearly killed this - without OneWeb, they had very few launches booked.
So, perhaps ironically, OneWeb using the ESA/Soyuz deal pushes forward the agenda of a cheap launcher for Europe.
Boris the Butcher is a click-bait title for an interview with the Sunday Times Insight Team (which turns out to be two people) about their book, Failures of State: The Inside Story of Britain's Battle with Coronavirus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_my9_ePPHc
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
The only time I ever contacted my MP on personal matter was when my Wife died in 2012. I rang the Tax office to tell them and all I received was a tax return in the post. No letter of sympathy or explanation and I was pretty angry, in fact livid would describe it better, at the time. He (Nick Herbert) wrote to Lyn Hamer? Who was the top person at HMRC at the time and I received a nice letter promising change but not immediately. I believe things have changed since. Vodaphone were even worse, kept calling asking if there was anything they could to so that my wife wouldn't leave. Even death wasn't enough for them to keep hassling me. I think things have changed there too...
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough fans of Radiohead to form a consistency.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
There is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be had about what counts as population. Possibilities would include:
the actual crude number ditto of 18+ the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
Manufactured ignorance like that adds very little to the debate.
If you are selected as Labour candidate for Bootle or Tory candidate for Sevenoaks, I’d say your job is as good as sewn up for life. Your voters will never be canvassed and will count themselves lucky if they ever see an election leaflet, probably just the one delivered by the Royal Mail at taxpayers’ expense.
Yes, in Leicester we have 3 safe Labour seats, in Leics 6 safe Tory seats, only Loughborough ever changes. So we don't get either active campaigns or a slice of the pork barrel being doled out in marginals. It is bad politics. Not least because much of the county works in the city, and vice versa.
What a defeatist view of politics. Every seat in the country is up for grabs.
In theory. The reality is somewhat different.
A proportion of safe seats is no bad thing, though - a fair degree of continuity of experience is important to the functioning of both government and Parliament.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough fans of Radiohead to form a consistency.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
The only time I ever contacted my MP on personal matter was when my Wife died in 2012. I rang the Tax office to tell them and all I received was a tax return in the post. No letter of sympathy or explanation and I was pretty angry, in fact livid would describe it better, at the time. He (Nick Herbert) wrote to Lyn Hamer? Who was the top person at HMRC at the time and I received a nice letter promising change but not immediately. I believe things have changed since. Vodaphone were even worse, kept calling asking if there was anything they could to so that my wife wouldn't leave. Even death wasn't enough for them to keep hassling me. I think things have changed there too...
When my wife died in 2011, I contacted the insurance company who had our home and contents insurance. They told me my premium would be going up since it was based on the age of the oldest person in the household (my wife was quite a bit older than me).
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough fans of Radiohead to form a consistency.
What about pineapple-on-pizza people?
They might be the only thing to challenge the Tories at the next election. Difficult to say whether that would be better or worse.
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough fans of Radiohead to form a consistency.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
Again, in theory. The degree of representation varies considerably in reality.
Indeed. And, although there are exceptions, those with safe seats are more likely to live remotely from the constituency (often having been parachuted in in the first place), less likely to visit, less likely to be assiduous with supporting local events or going the extra mile with casework, and more likely to be exploiting their near total job security for their own benefit, with jobs on the side or as we saw during the expenses scandal.
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough fans of Radiohead to form a consistency.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
There is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be had about what counts as population. Possibilities would include:
the actual crude number ditto of 18+ the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
The census might provide some sort of clue.
Yes of course. It tells you everything you need to know up to 10+ years ago except what it doesn't tell you.
Some places have increased population by 20% in ten years.
The census tells you nothing relevant about illegals, transients, people living in two places at the same time (millions of students), those who don't wish to be found, and not enough about eligibility to vote.
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough fans of Radiohead to form a consistency.
The big difference between OneWeb and Starlink, is that the former is going to be very much a B2B business, rather than B2C. OneWeb will be the backbone of BT broadband delivered to villages in the middle of nowhere.
It's interesting that the government gave RAF Space Command 400m quid to prevent Russian dominance in space and then subsidises the Russian space program to the tune of $50m/month by paying for Soyuz launches via their British Leyland in Space brainfart,
It's an interesting political game.
By saving OneWeb, the British government has saved the bacon of a number of European companies.
In addition, it is actually helping ESA move away from the Russians. Strange but true.
The Soyuz deal was supposed to be a way for ESA to offer cheap launch without having to do anything radical with the Ariane gravy train.
There is a (now dominant group within ESA/Ariane) that wants to replace the Soyuz deal with developing an EU cheap launch option. But for this to go ahead, they need to demonstrate payload volume. The collapse of OneWeb nearly killed this - without OneWeb, they had very few launches booked.
So, perhaps ironically, OneWeb using the ESA/Soyuz deal pushes forward the agenda of a cheap launcher for Europe.
Somewhere, there's a Russian laughing, thinking to himself "These Europeans do like to overthink things...." - as he commences the launch countdown for another Soyuz...
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
They win? The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Trouble is....when was the last time its work was actually implemented?
Why are we do obsessed with using geographical features for the creation of parliamentary seats? Wouldn't it be more useful, given we live in a digital, connected world to create constituencies based on other affinity groups:
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea - small town 70+ who own their own homes - lovers of ska music Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough fans of Radiohead to form a consistency.
What about pineapple-on-pizza people?
There must be some sort of constituency for all of those left over once all the sensible groupings have been allocated?
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
The only time I ever contacted my MP on personal matter was when my Wife died in 2012. I rang the Tax office to tell them and all I received was a tax return in the post. No letter of sympathy or explanation and I was pretty angry, in fact livid would describe it better, at the time. He (Nick Herbert) wrote to Lyn Hamer? Who was the top person at HMRC at the time and I received a nice letter promising change but not immediately. I believe things have changed since. Vodaphone were even worse, kept calling asking if there was anything they could to so that my wife wouldn't leave. Even death wasn't enough for them to keep hassling me. I think things have changed there too...
When my wife died in 2011, I contacted the insurance company who had our home and contents insurance. They told me my premium would be going up since it was based on the age of the oldest person in the household (my wife was quite a bit older than me).
. And no doubt your car insurance... when I met my now wife,, I put her on my insurance even though she would be unlikely to drive my car, because it was cheaper. I have never understood this logic.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
There is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be had about what counts as population. Possibilities would include:
the actual crude number ditto of 18+ the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
That's very fairly-expressed, but I do think it doesn't take age-dependent lifestyle into account. Older people tend to be settled in one place, and get round to registering in due course even if they're not that interested. Young people tend to move frequently (for reasons of job, relationship change, etc.) and don't get round to registering each time unless they're very interested. This introduces a bias to older people (even those who aren't very interested), which nowadays tends to mean Conservatives.
As I've said before, if the Conservatives aggravate the bias by requiring photo ID (we've discussed this endlessly but in reality we know it's what will happen), Labour should consider a balancing act, and asking the Boundary Commission to base its calculations on the estimated number of eligible voters would make a significant difference.
It's all very well to attack the Americans for their weird systems, but in the UK in 2019 the SNP got 1.25 m votes and 48 seats; the LDs got 3.67 m votes and 11 seats.
Gerrymandering takes many forms. I am sure Nicola thinks something should be done about it.
Whilst that is, imo at least, undemocratic as well, the fact it is the unfair result of a legacy system not designed by the beneficiary puts it in a completely different category to a new system designed by and for the beneficiary.
Good jobs figures this morning. I think Rishi made an error in extending the furlough all the way out to September.
BICS suggests that 12.6% employees were on full or partial furlough for 5 to 18 April 2021 . This is a big fall on 17.1% for the previous weeks (but still higher than September/October, and objectively, quite a lot). I don't mind Sunak's decision here. Next update on Thursday.
The big difference between OneWeb and Starlink, is that the former is going to be very much a B2B business, rather than B2C. OneWeb will be the backbone of BT broadband delivered to villages in the middle of nowhere.
It's interesting that the government gave RAF Space Command 400m quid to prevent Russian dominance in space and then subsidises the Russian space program to the tune of $50m/month by paying for Soyuz launches via their British Leyland in Space brainfart,
It's an interesting political game.
By saving OneWeb, the British government has saved the bacon of a number of European companies.
In addition, it is actually helping ESA move away from the Russians. Strange but true.
The Soyuz deal was supposed to be a way for ESA to offer cheap launch without having to do anything radical with the Ariane gravy train.
There is a (now dominant group within ESA/Ariane) that wants to replace the Soyuz deal with developing an EU cheap launch option. But for this to go ahead, they need to demonstrate payload volume. The collapse of OneWeb nearly killed this - without OneWeb, they had very few launches booked.
So, perhaps ironically, OneWeb using the ESA/Soyuz deal pushes forward the agenda of a cheap launcher for Europe.
Somewhere, there's a Russian laughing, thinking to himself "These Europeans do like to overthink things...." - as he commences the launch countdown for another Soyuz...
The Russian space program is in a terminal spiral - SpaceX has pretty much killed their business. The Soyuz deal doesn't actually help that much. The Russians got the price wrong - too low.
Getting ESA out of the Soyuz deal is a tricky one - we live in a world where the Ariane boss explicitly said that he was not allowed to reduce costs (jobs). So using the Russians as a cheap option seemed like a good idea at the time.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
The only time I ever contacted my MP on personal matter was when my Wife died in 2012. I rang the Tax office to tell them and all I received was a tax return in the post. No letter of sympathy or explanation and I was pretty angry, in fact livid would describe it better, at the time. He (Nick Herbert) wrote to Lyn Hamer? Who was the top person at HMRC at the time and I received a nice letter promising change but not immediately. I believe things have changed since. Vodaphone were even worse, kept calling asking if there was anything they could to so that my wife wouldn't leave. Even death wasn't enough for them to keep hassling me. I think things have changed there too...
When my wife died in 2011, I contacted the insurance company who had our home and contents insurance. They told me my premium would be going up since it was based on the age of the oldest person in the household (my wife was quite a bit older than me).
. And no doubt your car insurance... when I met my now wife,, I put her on my insurance even though she would be unlikely to drive my car, because it was cheaper. I have never understood this logic.
Statistical correlation. Green cars are known to be safer, in terms of serious accident likelihood (despite being marginally harder to see), yet if you buy a green car yourself you won’t be any safer on the road.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
Again, in theory. The degree of representation varies considerably in reality.
Indeed. And, although there are exceptions, those with safe seats are more likely to live remotely from the constituency (often having been parachuted in in the first place), less likely to visit, less likely to be assiduous with supporting local events or going the extra mile with casework, and more likely to be exploiting their near total job security for their own benefit, with jobs on the side or as we saw during the expenses scandal.
I guess the thing with 'safe' seats is that they're not necessarily safe forever. Who would have thought getting elected as a Labour MP in the red wall in 2015 was not a job for life?
(Said as someone who favours PR, but in the absence of that, safe seats becoming competitive, in both directions, can only be a good thing. The complete erosion of tribal party loyalty would probably be a good thing for democracy, so thank you to Corbyn and Johnson for that!)
By the way, the Greens have slipped back a bit in Germany. There has been a minor scandal of a Green mayor retweeting something racist - he was thrown out of the party, but as when a British MP or councillor says something objectionable and gets ejected, it's not helpful publicity for anyone. I doubt if the effect will be lasting, but it's just a reminder that we shouldn't assume a green victory is certain.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
There is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be had about what counts as population. Possibilities would include:
the actual crude number ditto of 18+ the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
The census might provide some sort of clue.
Yes of course. It tells you everything you need to know up to 10+ years ago except what it doesn't tell you.
Some places have increased population by 20% in ten years.
The census tells you nothing relevant about illegals, transients, people living in two places at the same time (millions of students), those who don't wish to be found, and not enough about eligibility to vote.
That is true. Whether eligibility to vote is relevant is a separate matter, of course. The census should not double count students. People who do not wish to be found probably avoid electoral registration too.
So despite all its drawbacks, the census is probably a better measure of population than the electoral register.
Good jobs figures this morning. I think Rishi made an error in extending the furlough all the way out to September.
BICS suggests that 12.6% employees were on full or partial furlough for 5 to 18 April 2021 . This is a big fall on 17.1% for the previous weeks (but still higher than September/October, and objectively, quite a lot). I don't mind Sunak's decision here. Next update on Thursday.
If restrictions are removed in June as promised, then I would make it specific to the international travel sector from 1 August onwards. However they probably wont be so lots of hospitality businesses will need support for longer.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
There is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be had about what counts as population. Possibilities would include:
the actual crude number ditto of 18+ the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
The census might provide some sort of clue.
Yes of course. It tells you everything you need to know up to 10+ years ago except what it doesn't tell you.
Some places have increased population by 20% in ten years.
The census tells you nothing relevant about illegals, transients, people living in two places at the same time (millions of students), those who don't wish to be found, and not enough about eligibility to vote.
That is true. Whether eligibility to vote is relevant is a separate matter, of course. The census should not double count students. People who do not wish to be found probably avoid electoral registration too.
So despite all its drawbacks, the census is probably a better measure of population than the electoral register.
The council will be using the voting register as part of policing things like single person discount for council tax, benefits fraud and the like.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
There is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be had about what counts as population. Possibilities would include:
the actual crude number ditto of 18+ the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
That's very fairly-expressed, but I do think it doesn't take age-dependent lifestyle into account. Older people tend to be settled in one place, and get round to registering in due course even if they're not that interested. Young people tend to move frequently (for reasons of job, relationship change, etc.) and don't get round to registering each time unless they're very interested. This introduces a bias to older people (even those who aren't very interested), which nowadays tends to mean Conservatives.
As I've said before, if the Conservatives aggravate the bias by requiring photo ID (we've discussed this endlessly but in reality we know it's what will happen), Labour should consider a balancing act, and asking the Boundary Commission to base its calculations on the estimated number of eligible voters would make a significant difference.
Thanks. Much agreement with this. How do you deal with numbers when millions of students live in two places? In some seats the student population when resident is a massive proportion of the seat. (Cambridge would be an obvious example).
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
How about a reverse-gerrymander? Boundary Commission takes polling/population figures and endeavours after each election to reconfigure contiguous constituency boundaries to make each seat as marginal as possible?
Bad for political/MP stability, but would make for much more interesting elections and possibly some interesting constituency names
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
Again, in theory. The degree of representation varies considerably in reality.
Indeed. And, although there are exceptions, those with safe seats are more likely to live remotely from the constituency (often having been parachuted in in the first place), less likely to visit, less likely to be assiduous with supporting local events or going the extra mile with casework, and more likely to be exploiting their near total job security for their own benefit, with jobs on the side or as we saw during the expenses scandal.
I guess the thing with 'safe' seats is that they're not necessarily safe forever. Who would have thought getting elected as a Labour MP in the red wall in 2015 was not a job for life?
(Said as someone who favours PR, but in the absence of that, safe seats becoming competitive, in both directions, can only be a good thing. The complete erosion of tribal party loyalty would probably be a good thing for democracy, so thank you to Corbyn and Johnson for that!)
I don't think it needs to get any more complicated than that: safe seats are safe until they are not.
As we have seen these past few elections. How anyone can say that certain seats, even in Rutland for goodness sake, and given recent and not so recent election results, are safe forever is beyond me.
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
There is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be had about what counts as population. Possibilities would include:
the actual crude number ditto of 18+ the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
That's very fairly-expressed, but I do think it doesn't take age-dependent lifestyle into account. Older people tend to be settled in one place, and get round to registering in due course even if they're not that interested. Young people tend to move frequently (for reasons of job, relationship change, etc.) and don't get round to registering each time unless they're very interested. This introduces a bias to older people (even those who aren't very interested), which nowadays tends to mean Conservatives.
As I've said before, if the Conservatives aggravate the bias by requiring photo ID (we've discussed this endlessly but in reality we know it's what will happen), Labour should consider a balancing act, and asking the Boundary Commission to base its calculations on the estimated number of eligible voters would make a significant difference.
All my experience is that in areas with younger, more transient populations, the principal consequence is lots of people still on the register who in practice are no longer there.
Anyhow, the criteria and terms of reference for the Commission are set by the government, and Labour trying to “ask” the Commission will achieve nothing. And, as and when Labour ever gets to a position when it can decide, surely repealing the original injustice is more sensible than trying to add another supposedly offsetting injustice.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
There's nothing that makes any seat intrinsically safe. Every vote is up for grabs for a Party with the right policies.
I'd be curious how many "safe seats" have switched hands since 1996.
Almost every single Scottish and LD seat for starters, as well as many supposedly safe Tory seats in 1997 and many supposedly safe Labour ones since 2010.
None in Leicester/Leics, apart from when the LDs briefly took Leicester South in a by-election.
According to Wiki 3 since 1996 have.
Leicester South which you named Loughborough which has gone from Safe Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, back to Safe Tory again (which rather belies the notion of it being safe). North West Leicestershire which has gone from Marginal Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, to Safe Tory.
Go further back and the Safe Labour seats Leicester East and Leicester South were Tory in 1983.
As I pointed out Loughborough is the only real marginal in the 10 local seats.
Northwest Leicestershire seems pretty bellwether too. It has a 37.9% majority for the Tories today, but was Labour 1997 - 2010* and had a 25.4% majority for Labour Co-Op in 1997.
If a seat can swing from 25.4% majority for one party, to a 37.9% majority for another, it rather belies the notion that there's such a thing as a safe seat.
* Ignoring the fact the MP died in 2009 and no by-election was held in the dying fag end days of Brown's government.
10 seats in 10 General Elections in 40 years, and 7 have changed hand in them. So 93/100 safe seats, even counting Loughborough, which is a Bellwether.
That's a farcical way of counting it. You shouldn't expect the seat to change hands if the people don't want it to change hands, even including the two bellwethers the nation has only changed hands twice in forty years so why would you expect that the bellwethers would go against the nation?
In the past 40 years all of the nine seats were supposedly "safe" at one point or another, but of the nine seats that existed 40 years ago five of the nine have changed hands in that period at least once. So even in an area that hasn't been known for electoral changes, the majority of the safe seats actually did change hands.
Even if you include Charnwood, because to be fair if it had existed in 1983 its unlikely it would have gone Labour, still half of the supposedly safe seats have changed hands.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
I wouldn't what proportion of restaurants close down in a year and a half typically anyway?
A significant chunk of restaurants do seem to close down and reopen with a new name and new staff quite frequently.
How about a reverse-gerrymander? Boundary Commission takes polling/population figures and endeavours after each election to reconfigure contiguous constituency boundaries to make each seat as marginal as possible?
Bad for political/MP stability, but would make for much more interesting elections and possibly some interesting constituency names
Would that risk one party winning 90% of the seats, SNP style?
Having safe seats at least guarantees an opposition in parliament, bad though they are for creating disenfranchised voters.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
This might sound harsh, but restaurants have a high failure rate anyway. I would expect over a year nearly 10% close in normal times.
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Hearing and been seeing the same thing with the construction industry in London. The rates of pay are soaring....
A problem was that some supply firms furloughed everyone and went home for the duration. When it turned out in the middle of lockdown that there was actually a huge demand for building work (both domestic and small commercial), they tried to only bring back a skeleton staff. At one point the country nearly ran out of plaster board, due to this.... They seem to have woken up now...
Comments
Almost every single Scottish and LD seat for starters, as well as many supposedly safe Tory seats in 1997 and many supposedly safe Labour ones since 2010.
I suppose if Swinney had worked really, really hard (this is of course a fantasy) and combined his efforts with those of Williamson's spider (surely the key decision maker south of the border) they could have come up with a worse system. Personally I am not sure that I have the imagination but these people have some remarkable talents in that respect at least.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester–Burton_upon_Trent_line#Future
Also just finished Dark Towers if you want to get depressed about just how bad Deutsche was… a light read but quite fun
I wonder how Parliament would look if parties gave up in supposedly safe seats like Hartlepool, Sedgefield and Scotland.
I count 9 for my constituency since 1885
Under FPTP you need to win, which is a remarkably brutal system when the electorate moves on, as shown in eg Scotland 2015 or Red Wall 2019.
Under PR it doesn't matter if you win or don't, you get a seat anyway. Which is why those who support parties that don't win constituencies are so desperate to get it.
https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1394546359060123651?s=19
Leicester South which you named
Loughborough which has gone from Safe Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, back to Safe Tory again (which rather belies the notion of it being safe).
North West Leicestershire which has gone from Marginal Tory, to Safe Labour Co-Op, to Safe Tory.
Go further back and the Safe Labour seats Leicester East and Leicester South were Tory in 1983.
1) there is a new strain of virus
2) we won't open up in June unless vaccination numbers improve
are valid arguments for doing so.
Not closing India off early can wait until the public inquiry.
One thing about referendums is that every vote counts equally, part of the reason for the discrepancy between Remain/Leave MPs and their constituents.
Bath - Safe LD for next election but somewhere the Tories have won in the past
Coventry South - Normally safish Labour but the Conservatives have got close before
Sheffield Central - Normally Labour but the Lib Dems have got close before, an area the Greens could potentially get in future
NE Derbyshire & Bassetlaw - Both looked like safe Labour for years, now both safe Conservative for the forseeable future.
Now you might be able to guess who will win next time - LD, Lab, Lab, Con, Con but they've all changed hands in the past.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
61 Eastern
47 East Midlands
75 London
27 North East
73 North West
91 South East
58 South West
57 West Midlands
54 Yorkshire and the Humber
https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/2023-review/guide-to-the-2023-review-of-parliamentary-constituencies/page/2/
If a seat can swing from 25.4% majority for one party, to a 37.9% majority for another, it rather belies the notion that there's such a thing as a safe seat.
* Ignoring the fact the MP died in 2009 and no by-election was held in the dying fag end days of Brown's government.
If people get the vaccine then the pandemic is over and the variant is irrelevant. If people don't get the vaccine then hospitalisations will continue.
Vaccinations have always been the end-game. Its the right story to talk about.
Granddaughter-in-law, who teaches Social Sciences to A level in an Essex comprehensive says much the same. Outside review especially for subjects where the school only has a small department of whatever.
Next grandchildren down are in year 10, so mock exams. One of them is in lockdown in Thailand, so did the exams at home. Quite reasonably grumbled that they'd been told that the exams they were having, and the way they were conducted, was to get them ready for Year 11's, but doing them at home didn't seem to fit with that!
And given the chance I'd be down to Chelmsford like a shot! My retirement present 18 years ago was a season ticket there.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/pm-s-sidelined-spokeswoman-allegra-is-finally-seen-on-screen/ar-BB1gP17w?ocid=msedgntp
Gerrymandering takes many forms. I am sure Nicola thinks something should be done about it.
He held on in 2001 but lost it in 2005, and a major redrawing seems to have made it much safer for the Tories.
Their local labour mp then went on to say it was because there were a lot of zero hours contracts and they had to travel a couple of miles to the vaccination centres
And you wonder why Labour are struggling
It is why opinion polls cease to exist between elections, as no-one can be meaningfully asked them as they do not know who will stand at the next election (even the incumbent may stand down without much notice), or the manifestos the parties will produce.
No, wait, hang on...
the actual crude number
ditto of 18+
the number of those who are eligible voters for GE/any election
the number of people registered as electors on date X.
There are difficulties with each. Given movement, illegal residence, transient population, those not eligible to vote, people (students especially) living in two places at once and people hiding from all forms of counting - quite a large group - it is most accurate to use the registered voter number and at the same time to stop the practice of being allowed to be registered at more than one place at the same time.
No-one has a clue what the real population is, and the more densely urban an area is the more this is true.
Those who are eligible to register and don't are exercising the same sort of freedom as anti vaxxers - you are free to act that way but don't expect to have every right upheld as citizenship has duties as well as rights.
We had 7 years to transition away from Commonwealth preference on the way in, and now we're proposing 10 years to transition back to tarriff free on the way out.
Provided meat is properly labelled and it's clear where it came from, so consumers can make a choice, I'm totally relaxed about it. I don't think it threatens British farmers at all.
By saving OneWeb, the British government has saved the bacon of a number of European companies.
In addition, it is actually helping ESA move away from the Russians. Strange but true.
The Soyuz deal was supposed to be a way for ESA to offer cheap launch without having to do anything radical with the Ariane gravy train.
There is a (now dominant group within ESA/Ariane) that wants to replace the Soyuz deal with developing an EU cheap launch option. But for this to go ahead, they need to demonstrate payload volume. The collapse of OneWeb nearly killed this - without OneWeb, they had very few launches booked.
So, perhaps ironically, OneWeb using the ESA/Soyuz deal pushes forward the agenda of a cheap launcher for Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_my9_ePPHc
A proportion of safe seats is no bad thing, though - a fair degree of continuity of experience is important to the functioning of both government and Parliament.
The degree of representation varies considerably in reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/may/18/a-jewish-case-for-palestinian-refugee-return
Difficult to say whether that would be better or worse.
Ah, my ban-hammer.
(Darn)
Some places have increased population by 20% in ten years.
The census tells you nothing relevant about illegals, transients, people living in two places at the same time (millions of students), those who don't wish to be found, and not enough about eligibility to vote.
It's called PR.
As I've said before, if the Conservatives aggravate the bias by requiring photo ID (we've discussed this endlessly but in reality we know it's what will happen), Labour should consider a balancing act, and asking the Boundary Commission to base its calculations on the estimated number of eligible voters would make a significant difference.
. This is a big fall on 17.1% for the previous weeks (but still higher than September/October, and objectively, quite a lot). I don't mind Sunak's decision here. Next update on Thursday.
Getting ESA out of the Soyuz deal is a tricky one - we live in a world where the Ariane boss explicitly said that he was not allowed to reduce costs (jobs). So using the Russians as a cheap option seemed like a good idea at the time.
(Said as someone who favours PR, but in the absence of that, safe seats becoming competitive, in both directions, can only be a good thing. The complete erosion of tribal party loyalty would probably be a good thing for democracy, so thank you to Corbyn and Johnson for that!)
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/
So despite all its drawbacks, the census is probably a better measure of population than the electoral register.
Scott must be seething.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
Should a location with a lot of tourists in it get extra MPs by counting the tourists, or do they not count?
Bad for political/MP stability, but would make for much more interesting elections and possibly some interesting constituency names
As we have seen these past few elections. How anyone can say that certain seats, even in Rutland for goodness sake, and given recent and not so recent election results, are safe forever is beyond me.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
@hzeffman
EXCL: Keir Starmer is in talks with a production company about a fly on the wall documentary tracking his leadership
Some aides see it as a way of getting a broader section of the public to engage with him
I guess the 'deadman walking' talk is real then?
Anyhow, the criteria and terms of reference for the Commission are set by the government, and Labour trying to “ask” the Commission will achieve nothing. And, as and when Labour ever gets to a position when it can decide, surely repealing the original injustice is more sensible than trying to add another supposedly offsetting injustice.
In the past 40 years all of the nine seats were supposedly "safe" at one point or another, but of the nine seats that existed 40 years ago five of the nine have changed hands in that period at least once. So even in an area that hasn't been known for electoral changes, the majority of the safe seats actually did change hands.
Even if you include Charnwood, because to be fair if it had existed in 1983 its unlikely it would have gone Labour, still half of the supposedly safe seats have changed hands.
A significant chunk of restaurants do seem to close down and reopen with a new name and new staff quite frequently.
Having safe seats at least guarantees an opposition in parliament, bad though they are for creating disenfranchised voters.
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
A problem was that some supply firms furloughed everyone and went home for the duration. When it turned out in the middle of lockdown that there was actually a huge demand for building work (both domestic and small commercial), they tried to only bring back a skeleton staff. At one point the country nearly ran out of plaster board, due to this.... They seem to have woken up now...