My goodness, there’s going to be a *lot* of trouble over their proposals for Stafford,Stoke and Stone.
Especially the way they blithely describe Stone as ‘what’s left when we’ve sorted everything else even though it makes no sense.’
Yes. If you look at the summary documents for each region, they reveal the sub-regions they used to calculate the seat allocations, and once you know these, it is often possible to see which they they ‘worked around’ and to spot which seat was the one that got the wards left at the end.
The whole principle is wrong. The aim should be effective representation, something which is best served by a town having one MP. The split off areas won't get representation because the MP can always blame the other MP(s) for not doing their bit.
My old town of Thornaby has been part of Middlesbrough and part of Stockton from a constituency perspective. Now it will be both - one ward stays with a redrawn Stockton west, two go to Middlesbrough. Which means the border runs literally through the town centre. No chance of anything getting done ever again.
Want to bring in the fairness and equality that the EC were tasked with? Replace FPTP.
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Towns frequently have two or more MPs if they're larger towns. Warrington has over 200k population are you suggesting that should all be one MP? So there's a Warrington North and Warrington South constituency, but the South one has always gone north of the river.
An MP is not a Council they don't need to get stuff done unilaterally for a town. They need to represent their constituents and they can do that whether it's one, two or three MPs across a town.
Trying to blame the other MP doesn't achieve anything when a constituent is demanding answers from their local MP and determining who to vote for next time.
Small towns love, big towns and big cities obviously have more. If you are Wazza or Stockton then yes you end up with two and hopefully a border that makes sense. But what if you are somewhere smaller?
Just up the road from you Andy Burnham's former seat of Leigh gets abolished, and once again they're splitting this small town in half right down the middle. The same with neighbouring Ashton-in-Makerfield. Makes no sense and really doesn't help these communities get properly represented.
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
Yeah. Start with something like counties and adjust the number of MPs per county as populations vary (you could even go for ceremonial counties to keep traditionalists happy). Have some proportional system for each county (so as to not get 11 MPs out of 11 on 35% of the vote) - STV, or open party list (open so you can explicitly sack individual MPs), and there you have equal representation per population, natural communities/areas, and even fairer overall representation for views in Westminster.
Also keeps parties on their toes as they're far more vulnerable to challenges from new parties when they lose the shield of FPTP. Make them work for a dominant position.
Just heard Burley on Sky say that Whitty and Vallance briefed the government yesterday suggesting it is 'grim'
To be honest I have not heard them say that and does anyone challenge Burley's sources
Where in God's name do they get 'it's grim' from?
The Delta variant is 40% extra not the 70% that the doom scenarios had. The double vaccine is at least 95% effective against it according to a leading virus expert yesterday.
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Sure, but that doesn't do much for the RN's war fighting capability (the putative reason for their existence) when they are already two frigate crews short.
In Berkshire, Hampshire, and Surrey, it has been necessary to propose two constituencies that cross county boundaries. We have proposed one constituency that contains electors from both Berkshire and Surrey, which combines the town of Windsor and the town of Egham. We have also proposed one constituency that contains electors from both Surrey and Hampshire, which combines the town of Bordon from the district of East Hampshire in a constituency with the towns of Farnham and Haslemere in Surrey’s Borough of Waverley.
In Sussex, it has been necessary to propose one constituency that crosses the boundary between East Sussex and West Sussex. We have proposed that this constituency contain electors from three districts (Lewes, Mid Sussex, and Wealden), combining the towns of East Grinstead and Uckfield.
I predict a riot.
Both very good illustrations of the consequences of working to a very rigid and relatively narrow allowable range in terms of electors - something, until the Tories got their hands on the rules - that in the past the Commission had some scope to avoid when there were strong enough community justification to deploy a bit of extra flexibility.
I think it's a reasonable requirement that seats be of equal size. Especially immediately after a redrawing of the boundaries.
community ties
No longer exist.
We've all got cars, travel all over the place and vote for Boris against evil Corbyn.
I'll put my more sanguine post another way. No one gives a shit which constituency they're in.
It's the MPs who will kick off about this. And political anoraks. No one else will care.
I think you might be surprised if you had ever intended a local inquiry (or hearing, as they're called nowadays). Now, you're right that very many of those attending are 'put up to it' by their politicians and political parties. Nevertheless it's a formal public consultation and the Commission is required by law to give regard to those consultation responses it receives.
My personal experience is that where the proposals are particularly egregious - for example splitting a village down the high street as is proposed for Hampstead - people are fairly readily willing to come forward and put their name to complaining about it. Such a campaign will surely be getting underway in NW3 and N6 very shortly.
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Complete and utter non-story with that weasel word "could" again.
Its a military vessel to be staffed by the Royal Navy. Even if its to be used for generating trade.
I fully expect this vessel to go ahead and to be built, I expect locally by Cammell Laird. Though others might expect their own local area to get it instead.
Military vessel my anus - they'll challenge it and we'll get dragged through the WTO courts.
And what about non faux-military vessels? We need a shitload of ferry boats - could have protected our industry but chose not to. Of course you approve...
Just heard Burley on Sky say that Whitty and Vallance briefed the government yesterday suggesting it is 'grim'
To be honest I have not heard them say that and does anyone challenge Burley's sources
Where in God's name do they get 'it's grim' from?
The Delta variant is 40% extra not the 70% that the doom scenarios had. The double vaccine is at least 95% effective against it according to a leading virus expert yesterday.
And that is why I challenge Burley crediting those remarks to Whitty and Vallance
On a remark such as that, she needs to provide her source but as she went on to refer to Independent Sage maybe she has an agenda
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Sure, but that doesn't do much for the RN's war fighting capability (the putative reason for their existence) when they are already two frigate crews short.
I take your point but it would seem to be the answer to @RochdalePioneers' point about tenders. Why is the Navy finding it so difficult to get personnel? Are they just not paying enough? They have been advertising heavily for years now.
Just heard Burley on Sky say that Whitty and Vallance briefed the government yesterday suggesting it is 'grim'
To be honest I have not heard them say that and does anyone challenge Burley's sources
Where in God's name do they get 'it's grim' from?
The Delta variant is 40% extra not the 70% that the doom scenarios had. The double vaccine is at least 95% effective against it according to a leading virus expert yesterday.
The Times said they gave a ministerial briefing that gave a “grim scenario”. Of course that could just be that they produced another one of their “models” and somebody has latched on to the mandatory “worst case scenario” and ignored all the rest.
I’m sure they were questioned intensively about why we are currently exceeding even the best case scenarios outlined in March when the road map was announced...
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Sure, but that doesn't do much for the RN's war fighting capability (the putative reason for their existence) when they are already two frigate crews short.
Wouldn't it probably be in the RFA, if they went this route?
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
The issue is that where the lines go makes far more difference than do the statistical variations in size between one seat and another - as is clearly demonstrated by the egregious position in much of the USA.
A review that applied neutral, objective and 'felt fair' criteria to boundaries but took a looser approach to balancing the numbers would almost certainly produce an outcome that was both more broadly acceptable and less politically 'biased' in terms of its effect on the political balance, than would one that was very strict on making sure all the seats were the same size but was completed by evil aliens in such a way as to favour one party or the other.
Thus the judgements being applied to the proposed boundaries are far more critical than the variation in the numbers.
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
Which seat will he go for ?
Probably Westmorland and Eden, it contains most of Kendal which is his biggest base in GEs I think.
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
Anyhow my counter-proposal - effectively a minor tweak to what is already a reasonable proposal (being my own counter-proposal from the last review, which it was good of them to keep on file ), is already in.
Just heard Burley on Sky say that Whitty and Vallance briefed the government yesterday suggesting it is 'grim'
To be honest I have not heard them say that and does anyone challenge Burley's sources
Where in God's name do they get 'it's grim' from?
The Delta variant is 40% extra not the 70% that the doom scenarios had. The double vaccine is at least 95% effective against it according to a leading virus expert yesterday.
The Times said they gave a ministerial briefing that gave a “grim scenario”. Of course that could just be that they produced another one of their “models” and somebody has latched on to the mandatory “worst case scenario” and ignored all the rest.
I’m sure they were questioned intensively about why we are currently exceeding even the best case scenarios outlined in March when the road map was announced...
I have just read the Times article which states 'the latest data is fairly grim'
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Sure, but that doesn't do much for the RN's war fighting capability (the putative reason for their existence) when they are already two frigate crews short.
I take your point but it would seem to be the answer to @RochdalePioneers' point about tenders. Why is the Navy finding it so difficult to get personnel? Are they just not paying enough? They have been advertising heavily for years now.
Presumably, the pay-job requirements balance isn't right. (Which illustrates why growing the economy to pay for more doctors/teachers/ruddy-faced sailors never quite works. As the country gets more prosperous, the cost of people, including people the state wants to hire, goes up roughly in step.)
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
His constituents seemed to like him
Absolutely. He may be a poor Lib Dem leader but he seems a well liked constituency MP
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
Funnily enough none of those are criteria for the review. If removing any seat where the incumbent is useless or uninteresting was the criterion, well we'd have some very unusual boundaries....
The North East seat changes aren’t too bad for Labour.
Although my seat, Newcastle upon Tyne North, could now be a marginal.
The Teeside seats make sense. The County Durham ones split Durham in multiple parts because there isn't any other way of doing it while keeping everything else within the rules.
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Complete and utter non-story with that weasel word "could" again.
Its a military vessel to be staffed by the Royal Navy. Even if its to be used for generating trade.
I fully expect this vessel to go ahead and to be built, I expect locally by Cammell Laird. Though others might expect their own local area to get it instead.
Military vessel my anus - they'll challenge it and we'll get dragged through the WTO courts.
And what about non faux-military vessels? We need a shitload of ferry boats - could have protected our industry but chose not to. Of course you approve...
You mean like the Scottish government tried to do with Ferguson Marine? Destroyed the business, lost the jobs and didn't even get the ferries.
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Complete and utter non-story with that weasel word "could" again.
Its a military vessel to be staffed by the Royal Navy. Even if its to be used for generating trade.
I fully expect this vessel to go ahead and to be built, I expect locally by Cammell Laird. Though others might expect their own local area to get it instead.
Military vessel my anus - they'll challenge it and we'll get dragged through the WTO courts.
And what about non faux-military vessels? We need a shitload of ferry boats - could have protected our industry but chose not to. Of course you approve...
HMY Britannia had a theoretical role as a hospital ship but it was never used as such (even in the Falklands) because she was as slow as fuck and needed heavy bunker oil.
The RN generally doesn't covet hospital ships because of the restrictions placed on them by the San Remo Convention and instead prefers 'Primary Casualty Receiving Ships'. The Boris Barge could be outfitted as such to give it a genuine military capability but it would be very expensive.
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
His constituents seemed to like him
Absolutely. He may be a poor Lib Dem leader but he seems a well liked constituency MP
IIRC, our Ms Cyclefree, who now lives close to, if not in, his area seemed to think well of him.
Quite major changes in Leics, with only NW Leics and Loughborough little changed. The latter will be the closest to a marginal locally, though the new seat including the suburbs south of the city from Oadby to Blaby may be interesting for Lib Dems. The rest have changed a lot but fairly sensibly. Syston and Melton together for example. Rutland is a group of rural leftovers.
E Mids gets one new seat, but I am struggling to work out which area has got it.
I'm a bit slow this morning, maybe it is the building humidity.
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
Funnily enough none of those are criteria for the review. If removing any seat where the incumbent is useless or uninteresting was the criterion, well we'd have some very unusual boundaries....
We may have ended up with a lot fewer than 600 seats!
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Complete and utter non-story with that weasel word "could" again.
Its a military vessel to be staffed by the Royal Navy. Even if its to be used for generating trade.
I fully expect this vessel to go ahead and to be built, I expect locally by Cammell Laird. Though others might expect their own local area to get it instead.
Military vessel my anus - they'll challenge it and we'll get dragged through the WTO courts.
And what about non faux-military vessels? We need a shitload of ferry boats - could have protected our industry but chose not to. Of course you approve...
That's right: I don't believe in protectionism.
If we're competitive then build ferries domestically. If we're not then import them and move on.
Military ships are an exception for fairly obvious reasons and yes a flagship is quite rightly a military ship. Ferries are not.
Off topic, it looks like the EU is ready to make some concessions on the NI protocol but, again, it comes down to flexibility on SPS and food safety rules:
Bristol West was overwhelming for them and massive so it seems possible. Also I think it keeps long term pressure from the greens even further at bay there.
Interesting contrast between Simon Fanshawe (founder of Stonewall, now critical of their views on Trans rights) and Benjamin Cohen (Pink News Editor, generally supportive of Stonewall position) on R4 - one came across as reasonable posing good questions, the other tried to question the interviewer suggesting he was asking the wrong questions and got very ranty when challenged. Bit of a car crash....
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
His constituents seemed to like him
Absolutely. He may be a poor Lib Dem leader but he seems a well liked constituency MP
When was the last time a leader former leader of one of the three national parties removed by the electorate?
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
His constituents seemed to like him
Absolutely. He may be a poor Lib Dem leader but he seems a well liked constituency MP
When was the last time a leader former leader of one of the three national parties removed by the electorate?
Broxtowe looks like a Labour gain there - marginal WWC Kimberley and massive Tory Nuthall and Watnall moved into Nottingham North, which is so strongly Labour (13% lead) that it probably stays Labour except in a super Tory year.
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Complete and utter non-story with that weasel word "could" again.
Its a military vessel to be staffed by the Royal Navy. Even if its to be used for generating trade.
I fully expect this vessel to go ahead and to be built, I expect locally by Cammell Laird. Though others might expect their own local area to get it instead.
Military vessel my anus - they'll challenge it and we'll get dragged through the WTO courts.
And what about non faux-military vessels? We need a shitload of ferry boats - could have protected our industry but chose not to. Of course you approve...
That's right: I don't believe in protectionism.
If we're competitive then build ferries domestically. If we're not then import them and move on.
Military ships are an exception for fairly obvious reasons and yes a flagship is quite rightly a military ship. Ferries are not.
Weird how a flagship triggers the left. It's like they haven't got the memo about flags from Starmer....
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Sure, but that doesn't do much for the RN's war fighting capability (the putative reason for their existence) when they are already two frigate crews short.
I take your point but it would seem to be the answer to @RochdalePioneers' point about tenders. Why is the Navy finding it so difficult to get personnel? Are they just not paying enough? They have been advertising heavily for years now.
They have a retention problem not a recruitment problem due to poor terms of service and conditions.
Cameron made 5,000+ RN personnel redundant and it was the most experienced and technically qualified that left because they were employable in civvie street. The service has never really recovered from that as it can't recruit direct replacements it can only recruit the equivalent of management trainees (officers) or apprentices (rates). They need 5-10 years to develop into replacements and many of them don't stick around that long.
That's why HMS QE can't go anywhere without hundreds of (very expensive) civvie contractors on board to provide technical and engineering support. Quite what will happen in a shooting war remains to be tested.
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Complete and utter non-story with that weasel word "could" again.
Its a military vessel to be staffed by the Royal Navy. Even if its to be used for generating trade.
I fully expect this vessel to go ahead and to be built, I expect locally by Cammell Laird. Though others might expect their own local area to get it instead.
Military vessel my anus - they'll challenge it and we'll get dragged through the WTO courts.
And what about non faux-military vessels? We need a shitload of ferry boats - could have protected our industry but chose not to. Of course you approve...
That's right: I don't believe in protectionism.
If we're competitive then build ferries domestically. If we're not then import them and move on.
Military ships are an exception for fairly obvious reasons and yes a flagship is quite rightly a military ship. Ferries are not.
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
His constituents seemed to like him
Absolutely. He may be a poor Lib Dem leader but he seems a well liked constituency MP
When was the last time a leader former leader of one of the three national parties removed by the electorate?
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
I think STV is my least favourite system.
It's the fairest system, the downside is generally weaker Gov'ts than FPTP.
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
I think STV is my least favourite system.
It's the fairest system, the downside is generally weaker Gov'ts than FPTP.
STV is my preferred system and it has been since I was 17.
Broxtowe looks like a Labour gain there - marginal WWC Kimberley and massive Tory Nuthall and Watnall moved into Nottingham North, which is so strongly Labour (13% lead) that it probably stays Labour except in a super Tory year.
Like this year, next year and for several years after that, you mean?
Good morning fellow Pb-ers. Promising one again, weather-wise
There's a cross.border seat just N of here. Part in Essex, part in Suffolk. Not sure how well that'll go down in tractor-country.
I couldn't find it? No changes proposed to the northern border of Harwich and North Essex
We have also proposed one constituency that contains electors from Essex and Suffolk, which includes a number of wards from the Braintree district, including the town of Halstead, with a number of wards from the West Suffolk district, including the town of Haverhill.
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
The draw of the royal yacht was that it was royal, hence invitations were coveted, it offered something no other nation could, where heads of state could kick off their shoes with ours, and it therefore fulfilled a useful diplomatic purpose.
I don't think a new trade yacht works unless it's royal because it's otherwise just a floating DTI - not quite the same thing.
I support it but the Royal Family need to be behind it, otherwise I don't think it works.
Just heard Burley on Sky say that Whitty and Vallance briefed the government yesterday suggesting it is 'grim'
To be honest I have not heard them say that and does anyone challenge Burley's sources
Where in God's name do they get 'it's grim' from?
The Delta variant is 40% extra not the 70% that the doom scenarios had. The double vaccine is at least 95% effective against it according to a leading virus expert yesterday.
Unattributed 'cabinet source' to the press. Take with a tonne of salt...
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Sure, but that doesn't do much for the RN's war fighting capability (the putative reason for their existence) when they are already two frigate crews short.
I take your point but it would seem to be the answer to @RochdalePioneers' point about tenders. Why is the Navy finding it so difficult to get personnel? Are they just not paying enough? They have been advertising heavily for years now.
They have a retention problem not a recruitment problem due to poor terms of service and conditions.
Cameron made 5,000+ RN personnel redundant and it was the most experienced and technically qualified that left because they were employable in civvie street. The service has never really recovered from that as it can't recruit direct replacements it can only recruit the equivalent of management trainees (officers) or apprentices (rates). They need 5-10 years to develop into replacements and many of them don't stick around that long.
That's why HMS QE can't go anywhere without hundreds of (very expensive) civvie contractors on board to provide technical and engineering support. Quite what will happen in a shooting war remains to be tested.
Going back a bit now when I was young it was the quality of army quarters that hit retention. It was fine for young single men but when they got married their wives were unimpressed and when the children came along the pressure to find a different job so they could live somewhere civilised mounted and mounted. By the time the young recruits were experienced, trained and getting to the sergeant level they were leaving.
This isn't the 2017-19 parliament, or even the 2015 one. How is this being blocked ?
There’s no further Parliamentary involvement in these boundary revisions. The only way these changes don’t go ahead in 2023, is via new primary legislation - which likely involves a change of government in the meantime.
They really should be set up to be automatic, once a decade or thereabouts.
Mr. Alex, that's the key. We're doing better than the best hope when the plan to unlock on 21 June was announced.
And presumably the road map wasn’t even based on the “best case” scenario happening!
Simple question to the Govt: “when you set out the road map and said that decisions would ultimately be based on “data not dates” what was the “data” you were provisionally assuming for June 21st to be met...?”
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Yes it's like Boris Force One. It's a military ship with a bunch of flags as the paint job. Honestly, who exactly is going to lodge a complaint anyway? It's a tiny contract.
The continuing growth of Cambridge forces another ward, this time Cherry Hinton, to be detached from the city, joining Queen Edith's in South Cambs. With the spillover growth in Cambs generating an entirely new "St Neots" seat west of the city.
This isn't the 2017-19 parliament, or even the 2015 one. How is this being blocked ?
There’s no further Parliamentary involvement in these boundary revisions. The only way these changes don’t go ahead in 2023, is via new primary legislation - which likely involves a change of government in the meantime.
They really should be set up to be automatic, once a decade or thereabouts.
Indeed. My question to @Anabobazina is just how is this prevented.
Drastic changes in my current seat, held by Jeremy Hunt. Fairly Tory Farnham and super-Tory Haslemere move to a new Farnham constituency, while Lib/Lab/Green Godalming gets a bunch of villages. Haven't worked out the details but suspect LibDems will be pleased, on balance, and Hunt will move to the new seat.
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
I think STV is my least favourite system.
It's the fairest system, the downside is generally weaker Gov'ts than FPTP.
Strangely, probably for both of us, I agree with Nick Palmer here.
If we're going to have PR I'd prefer open list by historic county/city/region (where necessary).
STV is contrived and tedious. It can take days and days to reallocate rounds and rounds of votes that ends in gridlocked parliament. It's death by preference.
I tell you what — starting a new job in a new industry 100% remote is really rubbish from a business perspective, never mind a personal perspective. Not productive at all.
The draw of the royal yacht was that it was royal, hence invitations were coveted, it offered something no other nation could, where heads of state could kick off their shoes with ours, and it therefore fulfilled a useful diplomatic purpose.
Even if it were 'royal' that doesn't make it unique. Mohammed Bin Salman's yacht is better than this thing is ever going to be.
Good morning fellow Pb-ers. Promising one again, weather-wise
There's a cross.border seat just N of here. Part in Essex, part in Suffolk. Not sure how well that'll go down in tractor-country.
I couldn't find it? No changes proposed to the northern border of Harwich and North Essex
We have also proposed one constituency that contains electors from Essex and Suffolk, which includes a number of wards from the Braintree district, including the town of Halstead, with a number of wards from the West Suffolk district, including the town of Haverhill.
Tim Farron looks done on the boundary changes, his Kendall stronghold and better rural wards split asunder.
Let's face it, he is no great loss. A disastrous leader of the Lib Dems, at least as bad as most of his successors, with no interesting ideas that I can remember.
His constituents seemed to like him
Absolutely. He may be a poor Lib Dem leader but he seems a well liked constituency MP
When was the last time a leader former leader of one of the three national parties removed by the electorate?
An interesting description for the (still hypothetical) situation of having your seat effectively abolished by Commissioners....
The draw of the royal yacht was that it was royal, hence invitations were coveted, it offered something no other nation could, where heads of state could kick off their shoes with ours, and it therefore fulfilled a useful diplomatic purpose.
Even if it were 'royal' that doesn't make it unique. Mohammed Bin Salman's yacht is better than this thing is ever going to be.
The draw of the royal yacht was that it was royal, hence invitations were coveted, it offered something no other nation could, where heads of state could kick off their shoes with ours, and it therefore fulfilled a useful diplomatic purpose.
I don't think a new trade yacht works unless it's royal because it's otherwise just a floating DTI - not quite the same thing.
I support it but the Royal Family need to be behind it, otherwise I don't think it works.
Yes, it needs buy in from Charles and William really. Otherwise I'm not sure what it brings to the table. Charles is all about environmentalism so I'm not sure he'd necessarily be in favour of a floating CO2 machine.
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
That really is a different argument and a perfectly valid one. But in FPTP the size of constituencies is important and the government were right to have tight criteria for this.
One of the [few] benefits of FPTP is a that a single MP represents a geographical area and is accountable to the electors in that area.
If towns like Chester are split into disparate constituencies that weakens the link.
I agree that the size of constituencies is important but so is the geographic link. There is a trade off. I think the 5% limit is too tight, particularly as the stated purpose is to make a grotesquely unfair system just a little bit fairer.
If you want to make it fairer, change to STV which maintains the geographic link, gives voters a choice between candidates from the same party, and leads to a fairer outcome.
Just heard Burley on Sky say that Whitty and Vallance briefed the government yesterday suggesting it is 'grim'
To be honest I have not heard them say that and does anyone challenge Burley's sources
It was word of mouth from 'cabinet source' in the Times this morning.
Deaths - not grim.
Hospital admissions - not grim.
Vaccination progress - not grim.
Prospects for Covid specialists to carry on their high-profile role of saving the Universe ad infinitem? Grim....
Funny.
Six months ago on here every SAGE member was a veritable saint, dedicated solely to saving lives. Superhumans, no less, with no personal agendas or foibles.
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Sure, but that doesn't do much for the RN's war fighting capability (the putative reason for their existence) when they are already two frigate crews short.
I take your point but it would seem to be the answer to @RochdalePioneers' point about tenders. Why is the Navy finding it so difficult to get personnel? Are they just not paying enough? They have been advertising heavily for years now.
They have a retention problem not a recruitment problem due to poor terms of service and conditions.
Cameron made 5,000+ RN personnel redundant and it was the most experienced and technically qualified that left because they were employable in civvie street. The service has never really recovered from that as it can't recruit direct replacements it can only recruit the equivalent of management trainees (officers) or apprentices (rates). They need 5-10 years to develop into replacements and many of them don't stick around that long.
That's why HMS QE can't go anywhere without hundreds of (very expensive) civvie contractors on board to provide technical and engineering support. Quite what will happen in a shooting war remains to be tested.
Going back a bit now when I was young it was the quality of army quarters that hit retention. It was fine for young single men but when they got married their wives were unimpressed and when the children came along the pressure to find a different job so they could live somewhere civilised mounted and mounted. By the time the young recruits were experienced, trained and getting to the sergeant level they were leaving.
I had to laugh when, looking at the headlines, it recently said that housing refugees in barracks was inhumane.
My goodness, there’s going to be a *lot* of trouble over their proposals for Stafford,Stoke and Stone.
Especially the way they blithely describe Stone as ‘what’s left when we’ve sorted everything else even though it makes no sense.’
Yes. If you look at the summary documents for each region, they reveal the sub-regions they used to calculate the seat allocations, and once you know these, it is often possible to see which they they ‘worked around’ and to spot which seat was the one that got the wards left at the end.
The whole principle is wrong. The aim should be effective representation, something which is best served by a town having one MP. The split off areas won't get representation because the MP can always blame the other MP(s) for not doing their bit.
[...]
Want to bring in the fairness and equality that the EC were tasked with? Replace FPTP.
I think that's a bit OTT, especially to state that 'the whole principle is wrong.'
You make a big claim about MP representation, which I'll come back to, but it's obviously not good for democracy to have some MPs voted in by 50,000 constituents and others by 140,000. As well as clearly over-burdening some MPs compared to others, that can lead to huge problems on a national scale which is worse for democracy.
I'm going to be controversial here in terms of a site like this but I suspect that constituency affiliation is vastly overrated. I've never written to my MP about anything and I suspect the number of constituents who actually go to see an MP about something is fewer than 1% of the population.
For some areas there may be great pride in their local constituency boundaries but I suspect you're clinging on to something which, if it ever did exist, was an awfully long time ago.
MP's have a vast amount of correspondence to deal with, much of it rubbish.
However, they are really the helper of last resort - ie when you are about to be deported, or when your child is about to be taken away by a graduate social worker. I have come to see this as the actual useful role of MP's.
This is a good argument for roughly equally sized constituencies. There should also be some goegrpahical coherance (ie towns and villages being represented by the same MP's and some degree of consistency with local authority boundaries).
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
I think STV is my least favourite system.
It's the fairest system, the downside is generally weaker Gov'ts than FPTP.
Strangely, probably for both of us, I agree with Nick Palmer here.
If we're going to have PR I'd prefer open list by historic county/city/region (where necessary).
STV is contrived and tedious. It can take days and days to reallocate rounds and rounds of votes that ends in gridlocked parliament. It's death by preference.
Drastic changes in my current seat, held by Jeremy Hunt. Fairly Tory Farnham and super-Tory Haslemere move to a new Farnham constituency, while Lib/Lab/Green Godalming gets a bunch of villages. Haven't worked out the details but suspect LibDems will be pleased, on balance, and Hunt will move to the new seat.
Yes, looking at Surrey they clearly started on the eastern side, and in Hampshire started with Portsmouth and Southampton, with the seats getting more and more changed as you move west and north
The draw of the royal yacht was that it was royal, hence invitations were coveted, it offered something no other nation could, where heads of state could kick off their shoes with ours, and it therefore fulfilled a useful diplomatic purpose.
I don't think a new trade yacht works unless it's royal because it's otherwise just a floating DTI - not quite the same thing.
I support it but the Royal Family need to be behind it, otherwise I don't think it works.
Yup. American businessmen in particular have the Britannia invitiations from Her Majesty in a frame on their office wall - even if they only actually got to meet a trade minister and Airmiles Andy.
It might be a job these days for Edward or Zara - they won’t be letting Andrew or Harry anywhere near it!
The draw of the royal yacht was that it was royal, hence invitations were coveted, it offered something no other nation could, where heads of state could kick off their shoes with ours, and it therefore fulfilled a useful diplomatic purpose.
Even if it were 'royal' that doesn't make it unique. Mohammed Bin Salman's yacht is better than this thing is ever going to be.
Never been on HMY Britannia, have been on the Queen's Flight. Seemed reassuringly comfy. Can't see Mohammed Bin Salman's stinkpot being able to get quite the same shade of beige.
Edit: without wishing to start a conversation on YOU KNOW WHAT again today.
No significant change here in St Albans, so Daisy is comparatively safe.
Major changes though to Harpenden. Previously Harpenden and Hitchen formed a consituency. Now Harpenden is linked west to include Berhampsted and Tring. Hitchen crosses the border with Bedfordshire to include Stotfold and Shefford.
There is now a compact Three Rivers constituency in SW Hertfordshire.
This time they've already happened. This is the boundary commission telling MPs what the new boundaries are.
Not for the first time. We are now going to have public consultations etc. before a final 2023 report.
However, what is different this time is that the government has a majority.
Anyone proposing a change to their proposed constituency should be required to suggest where the losing (or gaining) constituency should gain or lose from with a proposed chain that ends up with everything in quota.
I tell you what — starting a new job in a new industry 100% remote is really rubbish from a business perspective, never mind a personal perspective. Not productive at all.
Yeah it's terrible, we've got 2 new starters, they've been working for about 3 weeks and it's been a nightmare of onboarding and zoom meetings for them. Both of them want to come into the office ASAP but it's only open to a specific capacity until June 21st (or never, as it might turn out) and they're not booked in for a while.
Dominic Cummings has not provided written evidence of his allegations against Hancock, Jeremy Hunt tells Times Radio: "We will put those allegations to him but we haven't received the written evidence to back those claims up that we were expecting."
Just heard Burley on Sky say that Whitty and Vallance briefed the government yesterday suggesting it is 'grim'
To be honest I have not heard them say that and does anyone challenge Burley's sources
It was word of mouth from 'cabinet source' in the Times this morning.
Deaths - not grim.
Hospital admissions - not grim.
Vaccination progress - not grim.
Prospects for Covid specialists to carry on their high-profile role of saving the Universe ad infinitem? Grim....
Funny.
Six months ago on here every SAGE member was a veritable saint, dedicated solely to saving lives. Superhumans, no less, with no personal agendas or foibles.
Need to be careful. All that has been said is a quote from a 'cabinet source', not an actual briefing to the media. We all know that there are plenty who will leak stories to the media with an agenda, and it looks very like this is happening here. None of us know what Whitty and Vallence actually said.
I feel so incredibly sorry for one of the presumably many whose futures are staked on the 'will we, won't we' of 21 June, via their businesses.
The mental torture must be absolutely horrendous. Yesterday Johnson seemed to suggest it was going ahead as planned, and today we have the report in the Times of a delay. On/off, on/off. Incessantly, right up to the final moment, which it increasingly looks like will be a crushing disappointment.
This time they've already happened. This is the boundary commission telling MPs what the new boundaries are.
Not for the first time. We are now going to have public consultations etc. before a final 2023 report.
However, what is different this time is that the government has a majority.
Anyone proposing a change to their proposed constituency should be required to suggest where the losing (or gaining) constituency should gain or lose from with a proposed chain that ends up with everything in quota.
At least on this board
That's the catch with counter-proposals: people often say "don't split my town" but fail to offer a viable alternative or to realise that sometimes the Commission has no choice.
That said, for North East London last time, a guy who is a regular on the 'vote' boundary forums and, AFAIK, is a 'boundary geek' rather than a political activist, redrew completely the boundaries for all of that patch - about 14 seats as I remember - and the Commission was so impressed with his work that it adopted his counter-proposal for the whole area.
Love these reviews always a load of NIMPS - Not in my parliamentary seat!
Agreed. My Westminster constituency is Dundee West which includes bits of Angus where I live and Perthshire where my daughter lives. So what? The object of this exercise is to ensure that my vote and your vote have roughly equal value which is not the case at the moment where a Welsh vote is worth about 20% more.
We are currently operating off a 2001 census. It is absurd. The government should do the minimum consultation to stop legal impediments and then push this through. We also need to make sure that we never end up with these kinds of delays again. It is undemocratic, much more so than some town being split in 2.
FPTP isn't particularly good as a system for fair representation, and removing 50 MPs would have been even worse for smaller parties. Of course scrapping it and going to STV or some such would be the 'fairest' idea. But this is not what we are offered. We are offered a choice between FPTP on very out of date boundaries or more up to date boundaries. Obviously the more level numbers of constituents per constituency are better than previous.
I think STV is my least favourite system.
It's the fairest system, the downside is generally weaker Gov'ts than FPTP.
Strangely, probably for both of us, I agree with Nick Palmer here.
If we're going to have PR I'd prefer open list by historic county/city/region (where necessary).
STV is contrived and tedious. It can take days and days to reallocate rounds and rounds of votes that ends in gridlocked parliament. It's death by preference.
No thanks.
It doesn't have to take days and days to reallocate rounds. The Irish do it that way to heighten the drama. It also gives many betting opportunities between rounds. But it can be automated in an auditable way to be done overnight.
Gridlocked parliament?? 2017 May's government? Many local authorities are NOC but function perfectly well and represent over 50% of electors unlike FPTP.
I feel so incredibly sorry for one of the presumably many whose futures are staked on the 'will we, won't we' of 21 June, via their businesses.
The mental torture must be absolutely horrendous. Yesterday Johnson seemed to suggest it was going ahead as planned, and today we have the report in the Times of a delay. On/off, on/off. Incessantly, right up to the final moment, which it increasingly looks like will be a crushing disappointment.
Talk about a roller coaster. Poor people.
Make the people scared and they will be easy to rule - Confucius. And Xi. And every other despot.
Just heard Burley on Sky say that Whitty and Vallance briefed the government yesterday suggesting it is 'grim'
To be honest I have not heard them say that and does anyone challenge Burley's sources
It was word of mouth from 'cabinet source' in the Times this morning.
Deaths - not grim.
Hospital admissions - not grim.
Vaccination progress - not grim.
Prospects for Covid specialists to carry on their high-profile role of saving the Universe ad infinitem? Grim....
Funny.
Six months ago on here every SAGE member was a veritable saint, dedicated solely to saving lives. Superhumans, no less, with no personal agendas or foibles.
What's going on? Are they drunk on power?
The stats are good, no reason not to continue with the road map.
Or maybe the government is toying with the public for maximum effect? Dunno - hope not.
I tell you what — starting a new job in a new industry 100% remote is really rubbish from a business perspective, never mind a personal perspective. Not productive at all.
We have done a large number of remote starts and it seems to have worked quite well - it was a well established training programme and they could just do it by teams.
Thanks for the link yesterday to the law gazette article on the Andy Burnham comments on Justice .
"Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts" "But while Number 10 has announced its “intention” to build the as yet unnamed ship in the UK, this would breach an agreement that Britain signed up to only eight months ago.
Ministers failed to exclude the construction of civilian ships from the list of contracts that must be opened to global competition when it signed the WTO “government procurement agreement” (GPA) covering 48 countries last October."
"Liz Truss, trade secretary, boasted in October that the GPA would allow British companies to keep bidding for public sector contracts around the world worth £1.3tr a year. Likewise, she said, overseas groups would be able to continue to bid for UK public sector contracts, “delivering better value for UK taxpayers”.
But that could frustrate the government’s attempts to use a “Buy British” approach to building the new yacht. Item 47 of annex 4 of the UK schedule of the GPA explicitly says the procurement of “ships, boats and floating structures, except warships” must be advertised internationally and awarded without discrimination."
Flaggy McFlagface is also a significant cut in capability for the RN. It will need a whole frigate's worth of crew for which the RN are not receiving any extra funding at a time when 2 x T23 frigates are harbour queens due to... er... lack of crew.
If it is manned entirely by RN personnel surely we can class it as a warship for this purpose?
Sure, but that doesn't do much for the RN's war fighting capability (the putative reason for their existence) when they are already two frigate crews short.
War is the putative justification for the RN. Its actual purpose is to gather sigint for GCHQ and frighten the odd French fisherman until their navy shows up.
Comments
Just up the road from you Andy Burnham's former seat of Leigh gets abolished, and once again they're splitting this small town in half right down the middle. The same with neighbouring Ashton-in-Makerfield. Makes no sense and really doesn't help these communities get properly represented.
Also keeps parties on their toes as they're far more vulnerable to challenges from new parties when they lose the shield of FPTP. Make them work for a dominant position.
There's a cross.border seat just N of here. Part in Essex, part in Suffolk. Not sure how well that'll go down in tractor-country.
However, that does not change my question
The Delta variant is 40% extra not the 70% that the doom scenarios had. The double vaccine is at least 95% effective against it according to a leading virus expert yesterday.
My personal experience is that where the proposals are particularly egregious - for example splitting a village down the high street as is proposed for Hampstead - people are fairly readily willing to come forward and put their name to complaining about it. Such a campaign will surely be getting underway in NW3 and N6 very shortly.
And what about non faux-military vessels? We need a shitload of ferry boats - could have protected our industry but chose not to. Of course you approve...
On a remark such as that, she needs to provide her source but as she went on to refer to Independent Sage maybe she has an agenda
I’m sure they were questioned intensively about why we are currently exceeding even the best case scenarios outlined in March when the road map was announced...
A review that applied neutral, objective and 'felt fair' criteria to boundaries but took a looser approach to balancing the numbers would almost certainly produce an outcome that was both more broadly acceptable and less politically 'biased' in terms of its effect on the political balance, than would one that was very strict on making sure all the seats were the same size but was completed by evil aliens in such a way as to favour one party or the other.
Thus the judgements being applied to the proposed boundaries are far more critical than the variation in the numbers.
Probably Westmorland and Eden, it contains most of Kendal which is his biggest base in GEs I think.
That's a real "First!".
So journalist quote grim
(Which illustrates why growing the economy to pay for more doctors/teachers/ruddy-faced sailors never quite works. As the country gets more prosperous, the cost of people, including people the state wants to hire, goes up roughly in step.)
The RN generally doesn't covet hospital ships because of the restrictions placed on them by the San Remo Convention and instead prefers 'Primary Casualty Receiving Ships'. The Boris Barge could be outfitted as such to give it a genuine military capability but it would be very expensive.
I'm a bit slow this morning, maybe it is the building humidity.
If we're competitive then build ferries domestically. If we're not then import them and move on.
Military ships are an exception for fairly obvious reasons and yes a flagship is quite rightly a military ship. Ferries are not.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/eu-compromises-on-northern-ireland-nh22n7rzf
Bristol West was overwhelming for them and massive so it seems possible. Also I think it keeps long term pressure from the greens even further at bay there.
File under Ain’t Gonna Happen.
Again.
This isn't the 2017-19 parliament, or even the 2015 one. How is this being blocked ?
Cameron made 5,000+ RN personnel redundant and it was the most experienced and technically qualified that left because they were employable in civvie street. The service has never really recovered from that as it can't recruit direct replacements it can only recruit the equivalent of management trainees (officers) or apprentices (rates). They need 5-10 years to develop into replacements and many of them don't stick around that long.
That's why HMS QE can't go anywhere without hundreds of (very expensive) civvie contractors on board to provide technical and engineering support. Quite what will happen in a shooting war remains to be tested.
Mr. Alex, that's the key. We're doing better than the best hope when the plan to unlock on 21 June was announced.
I don't think a new trade yacht works unless it's royal because it's otherwise just a floating DTI - not quite the same thing.
I support it but the Royal Family need to be behind it, otherwise I don't think it works.
They really should be set up to be automatic, once a decade or thereabouts.
Hospital admissions - not grim.
Vaccination progress - not grim.
Prospects for Covid specialists to carry on their high-profile role of saving the Universe ad infinitem? Grim....
Simple question to the Govt: “when you set out the road map and said that decisions would ultimately be based on “data not dates” what was the “data” you were provisionally assuming for June 21st to be met...?”
If we're going to have PR I'd prefer open list by historic county/city/region (where necessary).
STV is contrived and tedious. It can take days and days to reallocate rounds and rounds of votes that ends in gridlocked parliament. It's death by preference.
No thanks.
Much less controversial than out east.
However, what is different this time is that the government has a majority.
If towns like Chester are split into disparate constituencies that weakens the link.
I agree that the size of constituencies is important but so is the geographic link. There is a trade off. I think the 5% limit is too tight, particularly as the stated purpose is to make a grotesquely unfair system just a little bit fairer.
If you want to make it fairer, change to STV which maintains the geographic link, gives voters a choice between candidates from the same party, and leads to a fairer outcome.
Six months ago on here every SAGE member was a veritable saint, dedicated solely to saving lives. Superhumans, no less, with no personal agendas or foibles.
Tell me about it.
However, they are really the helper of last resort - ie when you are about to be deported, or when your child is about to be taken away by a graduate social worker. I have come to see this as the actual useful role of MP's.
This is a good argument for roughly equally sized constituencies. There should also be some goegrpahical coherance (ie towns and villages being represented by the same MP's and some degree of consistency with local authority boundaries).
It might be a job these days for Edward or Zara - they won’t be letting Andrew or Harry anywhere near it!
Edit: without wishing to start a conversation on YOU KNOW WHAT again today.
Major changes though to Harpenden. Previously Harpenden and Hitchen formed a consituency. Now Harpenden is linked west to include Berhampsted and Tring. Hitchen crosses the border with Bedfordshire to include Stotfold and Shefford.
There is now a compact Three Rivers constituency in SW Hertfordshire.
At least on this board
Dominic Cummings has not provided written evidence of his allegations against Hancock, Jeremy Hunt tells Times Radio: "We will put those allegations to him but we haven't received the written evidence to back those claims up that we were expecting."
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1402169666081067009?s=20
The mental torture must be absolutely horrendous. Yesterday Johnson seemed to suggest it was going ahead as planned, and today we have the report in the Times of a delay. On/off, on/off. Incessantly, right up to the final moment, which it increasingly looks like will be a crushing disappointment.
Talk about a roller coaster. Poor people.
I won a good chunk of beer money betting against that.
That said, for North East London last time, a guy who is a regular on the 'vote' boundary forums and, AFAIK, is a 'boundary geek' rather than a political activist, redrew completely the boundaries for all of that patch - about 14 seats as I remember - and the Commission was so impressed with his work that it adopted his counter-proposal for the whole area.
Can we have Boris on the record ASAP. As Morris and Alex have pointed out, we are doing better than even the BEST CASE Sage scenario.
Gridlocked parliament?? 2017 May's government? Many local authorities are NOC but function perfectly well and represent over 50% of electors unlike FPTP.
And HMG whether by luck or design.
The stats are good, no reason not to continue with the road map.
Or maybe the government is toying with the public for maximum effect? Dunno - hope not.
Thanks for the link yesterday to the law gazette article on the Andy Burnham comments on Justice .