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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Boundary Review: Round-up
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Boundary Review: Round-up
Thinking that God might be Jewish after all. Or at least have a Jewish sense of humour. #boundaryreview https://t.co/uwCqZz4qVc
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Isn't that a brilliantly Blackadderish photograph of Osborne?
I think the new tighter 5% thresholds are a much more significant constraint on where the lines get drawn - given that almost everywhere wards are used as building blocks, there are only so many ways that they can be combined to keep every seat within the +/- limits, and looking at a few areas it is clear that a lot of strange combinations are being proposed in order to justify the numbers. The predominance of the arithmetic over sensible local areas is a disappointing aspect of the revised approach.
It also seems to me that the Commission has taken the approach of, firstly, dividing each region into a number of sub-regions, generally blocks of neighbouring authorities within whatever clear natural boundaries exist within each region and then, secondly, worked in from the edges of each sub-region, trying to maintain the existing seats and topping them up as necessary by robbing wards from the seats towards the centre of the sub region. This means that, if your seat abuts the boundary of a sub region it isn't generally hugely changed, whereas in the middle of each sub region existing seats disappear altogether, and quite often whatever wards are then left over are lumped together in a final seat that makes no real sense in community terms whatsoever.
https://twitter.com/Jamin2g/status/775459552321998849
Am I experiencing a sense of deja vu here? Why should this have been unexpected when wasn't this exactly the outcome when the previous proposals were published in the last Parliament before they were kyboshed by the LibDems? Stupid seats all over the place cutting across local and natural boundaries. Virtually every seat affected to a lesser or greater extent.
If it costs £100bn to stop a problem but £10bn to get used to mitigate its effects, then stopping it may not be economical.
Not suggesting that's the case but its a question that should be asked.
I live in Oxford West and Abingdon. It is a very mixed constituency with all sorts of different housing types and population groups. Does that matter? Only if the MP isn't doing their job of staying in touch with their constituents and not representing them properly.
This has been the case in the vast majority of places I have lived.
A constituency is a compromise - and this time they are being drawn up so that we have a far great degree of fairness than ever before. It is ludicrous to have a system where the variation between constituency sizes was so great. It is fundamentally undemocratic.
The goal of giving each vote equal weight is the right aim. Not preserving some ill-defined 'community' based on wards.
Shows just how weak a candidate HRC appears to be...
It is utterly wrong for the system to be so unbalanced at the moment. Making 'community' (whatever that means) the basis for making these changes would be wrong.
I hope the boundaries do get changed. Keeping them the same for either partisan advantage regardless of demographic change, or to keep incumbents happy is not satisfactory.
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-09-13/hillary-clinton-feeling-so-much-better-after-pneumonia-health-episode-at-9-11-memorial/
Noticed one free rag (Metro) claiming Putin and Trump were poisoning her.
Trump hasn't put any money into the charity for years.
Loss of Great Grimsby means Labour won't have a seat on the coast between Hull and Brighton.
There are 52 accredited Chambers of Commerce in the UK - representing only 92000 businesses. No constituency link there at all.
Rotary Clubs are made up of people who come together from all over a locality - many different wards and constituencies. The same is true for many of the other 'community' organisations you cite.
What any voter (and community group) wants it a good MP, the exact limits of the geographical area they cover matters not.
As regards to the needs of a voter - yes, they should be paramount. Many, many people work in a completely different constituency to the one in which they live. Does that mean they should get a vote in the one where they live and another where they work? Not at all.
Equal constituency size is absolutely the right basis for drawing up an electoral map. I have heard no argument that will change my view on that.
And yes, I'm being facetious, but we've now gone further and further down the road of trying to satisfy having one MP per however-many people, having an MP to represent a natural constituency of people, having a single MP for single constituencies, having a democratic system that at least sort of links the number of votes a party gets with its representation, and having the ability to have majority rule on only a plurality of the vote. So we've ended up with constituencies that really aren't natural collections of people - if we have no idea which collection we're in, it's hardly a natural and intuitive gathering, is it? And the part of linking votes to representation - well, that's the starting point for all the screaming from one side, or the other, or occasionally both
We could sidestep a lot of the boundaries issue by simply having multiple MPs for counties and/or unitary areas. You know, sort of like the way it all started?
You could also make it so that if a party gets, say, half the votes in Oxfordshire, they get half the MPs in Oxfordshire. Intuitive and easy to understand, and you're far more likely to have a county MP of the Party you voted for.
All our current voting system does is prevent millions of peole having their views represented in Parliament. If that were not the case maybe more of our fellow citizens would engage and would not feel so estranged from the political process.
This is the system we have. It is not going to change, but let's not pretend that getting 90% of seats for 50% of the votes is fair.
Have they used postcodes in their deliberations?
New NEC member Darren Williams boundary review an opportunity to select MPs 'more in tune with ordinary party members' #r4today
Which of the MEPs for the South East of England would be the best one for me to approach on an Oxford issue? I have no idea. It might be Mrs Bearder of the LDs - but that is by no means certain.
Do I know who my local councillors are? Absolutely. Do I know who my MP is? Yep. Does it matter that Jericho is lumped in with parts of Botley at a council level? No. Does it matter that the border between OxWAB and Oxford East is relatively close and that the issue I wish to tackle might also have cross-over? No. I go to my MP.
Regional groups of elected representatives does nothing to promote good representative democracy. It undermines it completely.
Also turnout has gone up 3 elections in a row, albeit barely last time and from the lowest ebb, so people have been reengaging.
It's possible to get something fairer than now, even if we think a more radical move would be better at making it truly fair. We shouldn't fall into the politicians trap of 'your idea doesn't solve everything, therefore it is useless', or scoff at improvements by degree as if they are nothing.
Just joshing.
But if you have three local councillors, that's fine?
Okay.....
You'd probably have three Conservative MPs to choose from, one Labour, one UKIP and one Lib Dem.
Given that the average person has to look up what constituency they're in and who their MP is when they need them in any case, I don't see this remotely being an issue.
MEP regions represent a huge amount of people in an area where very few people care about what they do.
Which losers do you think were more popular than the winners and should have taken a seat instead?
Corbyn and co are going to vote for the changes, as it's the easiest way to allow deselections of the moderate.
There have been precious few coalitions in the UK, but in Germany or Israel under PR they happen all the time. Manifesto pledges may be dropped on occasion in the UK but there's clear accountability. In coalition negotiations they're bartered away, bargaining chips for parties to discard negotiating with other parties to determine who the government ought to be [for it is the political class, not the electorate, who decide it].
Proportional representation also leads to party fragmentation. The major parties would splinter into two or three or even more smaller parties to try and vacuum up every vote of a particular niche. It is an abominable system combining the worst aspects of appealing to the mob without the corresponding virtue of giving to the people the choice of government.
Damn near EVERYONE knows which county, city, or London Borough they live in, and these genuinely are natural constituencies.
Labour members will choose candidate for Jo Cox’s seat within a fortnight https://t.co/rTZViXc1j1
We have to have a level playing field - each constituency representing the same number of voters. What is wrong with that?
Your solution of rewarding parties for being unpopular is a terrible idea.
Their base does not seem to be holding; probably because its views and interests are no longer represented by the MPs.
I think going back to multi member constituencies is the future, but also that the two party system will return within the next 25 years.
I do not think it is a good thing for people to vote mindlessly for one party because they always have (and so did their parents), but nor is it right to censure all those who continually win their seat. I likely would've voted for Gwyneth Dunwoody, had she been a candidate in my seat, because I think she had character, and if she'd won several elections in a row I would've seen that as a positive, not a negative.
Constant churn in every seat would be worse than the situation we have now.
As for checks and balances, this is a wider discussion, though worthy, in which we ought not limit ourselves to the electoral system but the relationship between Crown, Lords and Commons. Sadly, I lack faith in both the intelligence and the objectivity of our politicians when it comes to constitutionally tinkering (we need only look at Labour's Celtic folly to see how well their partisan dreams of perpetual fiefdoms went).
Edited extra bit: Mr. Observer, if we had PR, I do wonder how long it would be before someone like Anjem Choudary[sp] set up a party.
FPTP, as you allude to in your last paragraph, means that the two big parties are uneasy coalitions that are pre-formed, and the politicians do their negotiating away from you and what you may or may not want, to present you with a fait accompli.
Then as long as one side's fait accompli is marginally less demoralising than that of the other, they can take complete power and justify it as representing the people's will.
Whereas under the horribly unrepresentative PR, each niche of the people's will is, as you point out, represented in the open negotiations. As Burke said, we elect representatives, not delegates. We don't elect policies but parties that adhere to specific ideologies and directions, who put forward policy directions. The net result of negotiations should therefore be related to the representative power of each strand of opinion and ideology. That's what PR should afford: the relative strengths of all those areas of the public will would be fairly represented before the negotiations begin. The individual policies of the Government then come out of the net ideological makeup of the representative Parliament, rather than the net ideological makeup of whatever the big party in question decided on before the fact, take it or leave it, if you don't take ours you get Corbyn, you don't want that do you?
By the way, has anyone here heard of the affect heuristic? The one that makes us preferentially find/accentuate/dwell on more positives when analysing proposals that benefit our inherent preferences or side and find/accentuate/dwell on more negatives when analysing proposals that see our side or preference lose out? It would be interesting to see how people line up on their arguments against this
Since Southam has repeatedly shown he wants to view Scottish MPs in isolation from everyone else with his repeated 90% references we should analyse how many MPs are in the two parties in each nation.
In England 525 out of 533 MPs (98.5%) went to the top two parties.
In Wales 36 out of 40 MPs (90%) went to the top two parties.
In Scotland 57 out of 59 MPs (96.6%) went to the top two parties
Actually in Scotland 56 out of (95%) went to top one party.
The two party system is thriving. It is just that Scotland, like Northern Ireland, no longer votes with England and Wales.
Suppose two parties have 20% each, and six have 10% each. Those six could, under PR, form the government. The two most popular parties could be locked out. And this would be accounted entirely legitimate under PR, where the six losers thwart the two winners. And if those six, having such multi-lateral talks, make a bonfire of the promises, the very strands of opinion you say should be represented, what than can the electorate do?
For five years, nothing whatsoever. You may argue this is no different to the current arrangement, but that neglects to recognise the very nature of PR and inevitable coalitions is to make manifesto pledges less a list of promises, and more a menu from which government policy is selected, not by the electorate, but by the whims of the political class in private negotiations.
In short, there is a ready-made, bullet-proof pretext for throwing away promises that may have won support from the strands of opinion you say should be represented, whereas it is a far more serious and noteworthy thing when a single party majority government decides to throw away manifesto pledges.
Though the system is designed to require a large number of votes locally. That is a deliberate feature. You haven't yet demonstrated why a local loser deserves a seat while the local winner does not.