Any news from Barnet or Croydon?
Coli...@aol.com
However, I've only just discovered it, and I'd like to join in the
general chat and discussion, having been fascinated by British and
Irish elections for more than 30 years!
I know it's a bit early to flag this one, but is there any news of the
High Barnet and Fairfield by-election results yet? I've just checked
the council web sites, but these may not be updated until Friday
morning..................
Adam Gray
news:1134685525....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Come back in about an hour - it's a little soon for the results to have been
done and dusted.
Adam
Colin Rosenstiel
Coli...@aol.com () wrote:
Indeed so. However, I am told the Forest Heath DC byelection result is a
Liberal Democrat gain from Conservative.
--
Cllr. Colin Rosenstiel
Cambridge http://www.rosenstiel.co.uk/
Cambridge Liberal Democrats: http://www.cambridgelibdems.org.uk/
Coli...@aol.com
of interest from today's by-elections will be the performance of the
BNP in Bournemouth.
michael...@gmail.com
My first post on this site, but it's just to let you know that the Lib
Dems gained High Barnet ward from the Tories on a 22% swing. I am
unsure of the exact numbers of votes cast (no doubt this will beecome
apparent when the council website is updated).
This, coupled with the resignation of another Tory councillor earlier
this week, means that the council is now hung, with the Tories on 31,
Labour on 24 and the Lib Dems on 7.
Colin Rosenstiel
michael...@gmail.com () wrote:
> Hi there
>
> My first post on this site, but it's just to let you know that the Lib
> Dems gained High Barnet ward from the Tories on a 22% swing. I am
> unsure of the exact numbers of votes cast (no doubt this will beecome
> apparent when the council website is updated).
Wow!
> This, coupled with the resignation of another Tory councillor earlier
> this week, means that the council is now hung, with the Tories on 31,
> Labour on 24 and the Lib Dems on 7.
Technically hung I take it? Or is the Mayor not Tory?
Adam Gray
news:memo.2005121...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk...
> In article <1134696198.8...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> michael...@gmail.com () wrote:
>
>> Hi there
>>
>> My first post on this site, but it's just to let you know that the Lib
>> Dems gained High Barnet ward from the Tories on a 22% swing. I am
>> unsure of the exact numbers of votes cast (no doubt this will beecome
>> apparent when the council website is updated).
>
> Wow!
>
>> This, coupled with the resignation of another Tory councillor earlier
>> this week, means that the council is now hung, with the Tories on 31,
>> Labour on 24 and the Lib Dems on 7.
>
> Technically hung I take it? Or is the Mayor not Tory?
Yeah, technically hung. Though with Tories resigning left, right and centre
here who know how long that will last - the resignations are coming because
incumbents are not being reselected and are quitting: the Tories are in an
absolute mess here.
Not only are the odds of a hung council in May becoming very short, the
Tories don't even look on track to end up the largest party - for the first
time ever. Even Labour overall control, which looked very difficult a few
months ago can't be entirely ruled out overall; even with no substantial
advance in Labour's vote if Tories go Lib Dem in disgust on anything like
this scale. But a hung council remains the increasingly firm likelihood.
Adam
Paul Hyett
wrote :
>>
>> Technically hung I take it? Or is the Mayor not Tory?
>
>Yeah, technically hung. Though with Tories resigning left, right and centre
>here who know how long that will last - the resignations are coming because
>incumbents are not being reselected and are quitting: the Tories are in an
>absolute mess here.
Why aren't the Tories re-selecting incumbents, then?
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham
Coli...@aol.com
Not entirely clear. Probably all personal stuff. The local press can
be consulted at:
The Tories losing control is quite likely.......... Labour has
performed well in by-elections in the borough since May 2002 (e.g.
Burnt Oak, Colindale, Hale etc.).
bein...@gmail.com
> by-elections will be the performance of the
> BNP in Bournemouth.
A pleasantly humiliating fourth place with 74 votes.
jdcxxx
Miguelito
http://www.barnet.gov.uk/barnet_life/news/index.php3?go=1328
16/12/2005
HIGH BARNET WARD BY-ELECTION RESULTS
Results of the By-election held in High Barnet Ward on 15 December
2005.
Duncan Colin MACDONALD is duly elected for the HIGH BARNET WARD of the
LONDON BOROUGH OF BARNET.
MACDONALD Duncan Colin (Liberal Democrat) 1409
PERRY Bridget Teresa (Conservative) 1295
ROBERTS Timothy John Knight (Labour) 354
POPPY Audrey (Green Party) 89
JOHNSON Christopher Vaughan (Independent) 26
Contrast with May 2002 results:
HIGH BARNET
x PRENTICE, Yvonne Wendy Conservative 2225
x DAVID, Katia Conservative 2129
x PATEL, Kantilal Shivji Conservative 1989
ROGERS, Alison Margaret Labour 1054
THOMAS, Glyn Labour 954
COOK, Liam Anthony Labour 937
NOWELL, David Alexander Giles Liberal Democrat 578
HARRIS, Matthew Frederick Liberal Democrat 549
BARTON, David James Liberal Democrat 490
RILEY, Tim Green Party 478
JOHNSON, Christopher Vaughan Independent 273
Sean
Last night produced a number of wild swings across the country. High
Barnet was as terrible a result for the Conservatives as the
Bournemouth result was for the Lib Dems.
Coli...@aol.com
Heath result which is rumoured to be a Lib Dem gain from Conservatives.
Otherwise a good night for the Tories except in Barnet.......
Barnet LBC, High Barnet
LD 1409 (44.4%), Con 1295 (40.8%), Lab 354 (11.2%), Green 89 (2.8%),
Ind 26 (0.8%).
Turnout N/A. Majority 114. LD Gain from Con
http://www.barnet.gov.uk/barnet_life/news/index.php3?go=1328
Bournemouth UC, Littledown and Iford
Con 1318 (67.8%), LD 389 (20.0%), Lab 162 (8.3%), BNP 74 (3.8%).
Turnout 25.9%. Majority 929. Con Gain from LD
http://www.bournemouth.gov.uk/Library/PDF/Residents/Electionsandvoting/Littledown%20&%20Iford%20By-election%20Result%20Poster.pdf
Carrick DC, Kenwyn and Chacewater
Con 530 (71.0%), LD 216 (29.0%).
Turnout N/A. Majority 314. Con Gain from LD
http://www.carrick.gov.uk/media/adobe/g/p/Kenwyn_Chacewater_Results_1.pdf
Croydon LBC, Fairfield
Con 1459 (53.8%), Lab 871 (32.1%), LD 233 (8.6%), Green 82 (3.0%), Ind
34 (1.3%), MRLP 31 (1.1%).
Turnout 28.1%. Majority 588. Con Hold
http://www.croydon.gov.uk/councilanddemocracy/electoral/274114/378802/393575.pdf
Lewes DC, Peacehaven North
Con 406 (64.6%), LD 113 (18.0%), Lab 109 (17.4%).
Turnout 18.2%. Majority 293. Con Hold
http://www.lewes.gov.uk/council/3881.asp
Lichfield DC, Chadsmead
Con 192 (39.2%), Lab 181 (36.9%), LD 117 (23.9%).
Turnout 18.6% Majority 11. Con Gain from Lab
http://www.lichfielddc.gov.uk/downloads/chadsmead_district_council_election_declaration.pdf
JohnLoony
Coli...@aol.com wrote:
> Croydon LBC, Fairfield
> Con 1459 (53.8%), Lab 871 (32.1%), LD 233 (8.6%), Green 82 (3.0%), Ind
> 34 (1.3%), MRLP 31 (1.1%).
> Turnout 28.1%. Majority 588. Con Hold
> http://www.croydon.gov.uk/councilanddemocracy/electoral/274114/378802/393575.pdf
In 5th place was People's Choice, not Independent. And don't forget
that I am official.
(he said pedantically)
Coli...@aol.com
in bed with your Horlicks by 1.34 am.
Coli...@aol.com
http://www.hendontimes.co.uk/display.var.662863.0.lib_dems_shock_win_at_high_barnet_byelection.php
Colin Rosenstiel
Coli...@aol.com () wrote:
"It is only the third time in the council's history that a seat has
changed hands in a by-election."
Extraordinary! Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other than
Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
In the years since the first London Borough elections, by contrast,
Cambridge (with annual elections to reduce the number of byelections)
has had 12 seats change hands in byelections including two where there
were casual vacancies - details at
http://www.cambridgeelections.org.uk/byechange.htm.
JohnLoony
Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
> In article <1134941007.2...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
> Coli...@aol.com () wrote:
> "It is only the third time in the council's history that a seat has
> changed hands in a by-election."
>
> Extraordinary! Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other than
> Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
Croydon (since the 1964 reorganisation):
1965 Addiscombe Con gain from Lab
1966 Waddon Con gain from Lab
1976 Whitehorse Manor Con gain from Lab
1976 Woodside Con gain from Lab
1976 Waddon Con gain from Lab
1980 Bensham Manor Lab gain from Con
1981 Rylands Lab gain from Con
1992 Upper Norwood Lab gain from Con
Total 8
David Boothroyd
rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
> In article <1134941007.2...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
> Coli...@aol.com () wrote:
>
> > Here is how the local press reported the High Barnet result:
> >
> > http://www.hendontimes.co.uk/display.var.662863.0.lib_dems_shock_win_a
> > t_high_barnet_byelection.php
>
> "It is only the third time in the council's history that a seat has
> changed hands in a by-election."
>
> Extraordinary! Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other than
> Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
Westminster has zero.
--
http://www.election.demon.co.uk
"We can also agree that Saddam Hussein most certainly has chemical and biolog-
ical weapons and is working towards a nuclear capability. The dossier contains
confirmation of information that we either knew or most certainly should have
been willing to assume." - Menzies Campbell, 24th September 2002.
Colin Rosenstiel
da...@election.demon.co.uk (David Boothroyd) wrote:
> In article <memo.2005121...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk>,
> rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
> > In article <1134941007.2...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
> > Coli...@aol.com () wrote:
> >
> > > Here is how the local press reported the High Barnet result:
> > >
> http://www.hendontimes.co.uk/display.var.662863.0.lib_dems_shock_win_a
> > > t_high_barnet_byelection.php
> >
> > "It is only the third time in the council's history that a seat has
> > changed hands in a by-election."
> >
> > Extraordinary! Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other
> > than Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
>
> Westminster has zero.
In the whole 41 years? Wow!
Adam Gray
news:memo.2005121...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk...
> da...@election.demon.co.uk (David Boothroyd) wrote:
>
>> In article <memo.2005121...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk>,
>> rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
>> > In article <1134941007.2...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
>> > Coli...@aol.com () wrote:
>> >
>> > > Here is how the local press reported the High Barnet result:
>> > >
>> http://www.hendontimes.co.uk/display.var.662863.0.lib_dems_shock_win_a
>> > > t_high_barnet_byelection.php
>> >
>> > "It is only the third time in the council's history that a seat has
>> > changed hands in a by-election."
>> >
>> > Extraordinary! Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other
>> > than Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
>>
>> Westminster has zero.
>
> In the whole 41 years? Wow!
Hammersmith & Fulham's had four (Addison c.1976, Broadway 1989, Crabtree
1996, Sands End 2002 - if you regard the re-run Sands End election following
the 2002 local elections as a by-election, 3 if you don't).
Wandsworth's also had 4 (St John 1969, Southfield 1975 and 1976, Furzedown
1976) . It's not that unusual.
Adam
Matthew Huntbach
> "Colin Rosenstiel" <rosen...@cix.co.uk> wrote in message
>>>> "It is only the third time in the council's history that a seat has
>>>> changed hands in a by-election."
>
>>>> Extraordinary! Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other
>>>> than Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
>>> Westminster has zero.
>> In the whole 41 years? Wow!
> Hammersmith & Fulham's had four (Addison c.1976, Broadway 1989, Crabtree
> 1996, Sands End 2002 - if you regard the re-run Sands End election following
> the 2002 local elections as a by-election, 3 if you don't).
>
> Wandsworth's also had 4 (St John 1969, Southfield 1975 and 1976, Furzedown
> 1976) . It's not that unusual.
Meanwhile, Lewisham's had 7 since the last full elections in 2002 (including
a change of hands at a by-electiion which reversed a change of hands in
a previous by-election).
Matthew Huntbach
John M Ward
Matthew Huntbach <m...@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Dec 2005, Adam Gray wrote:
> > "Colin Rosenstiel" <rosen...@cix.co.uk> wrote in message
> >>>> "It is only the third time in the council's history that a seat
> >>>> has changed hands in a by-election."
> >
> >>>> Extraordinary! Any other London Boroughs with such a record
> >>>> (other than Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
> >>> Westminster has zero.
> >> In the whole 41 years? Wow!
It's possible that they have never had a by-election (I don't know, but
that has been the situation so far with my Unitary) which was one of the
original criteria.
> > Hammersmith & Fulham's had four (Addison c.1976, Broadway 1989,
> > Crabtree 1996, Sands End 2002 - if you regard the re-run Sands
> > End election following the 2002 local elections as a by-election,
> > 3 if you don't).
Oh! That brings up such memories for me, from the time I lived there:
an interesting time in many ways. As I have hinted at here before, it
was a community with a certain "feel" to it, with its own character.
> > Wandsworth's also had 4 (St John 1969, Southfield 1975 and 1976,
> > Furzedown 1976) . It's not that unusual.
> Meanwhile, Lewisham's had 7 since the last full elections in 2002
> (including a change of hands at a by-electiion which reversed a
> change of hands in a previous by-election).
That can happen, as I seem to recall having spotted happening in other
areas in times gone by -- perhaps not quite as many times, but...
Overall, I find communities to be fascinating entities. Politically,
any one of them can go any way on a particular occasion. None of the
ones I have encountered has been the exclusive domain of one political
party; and they do swing one way or another as time goes by, as local
issues appear and attain prominence, and as the country (and the world)
changes with time. It is all fascinating and of tremendous importance.
--
John M Ward - see http://www.horsted.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
Conservative Councillor for Rochester South & Horsted ward, Medway
* Oppose electoral fraud, especially through postal votes
* Scrap the ODPM, SEERA, and the Standards Board for England
* Return all local decisions to local people
ik...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Avoiding the wrap:
http://tinyurl.com/b2jr2
Ian Ridley
"I am a Liberal because I prefer progress to stagnation;
because I place the happiness of the many above the privileges
of the few; and because I believe that disastrous revolutions
are best averted by timely reforms" - George Osborne Morgan.
Coli...@aol.com
seemed never ending, especially in the 1980s:
1964-1968: 12 by-elections (9 caused by Aldermanic elections). 1
changes hands: Harrow Weald (1967, Lab to Con).
1968-1971: 6 by-elections (4 caused by Aldermanic elections). No
seats change hands.
1971-1974: 5 by-elections (1 caused by Aldermanic election). No seats
change hands.
1974-1978: 2 by-elections. No seats change hands.
1978-1982: 9 by-elections. 5 change hands: Roxbourne (1978, Con to
Lab), Wemborough (1978, Con to R), Greenhill (1979, Con to Lib),
Greenhill (1980, Con to Lib), Kenton East (1981, Lab to SDP),
Marlborough (1981, Lab to Lib).
1982-1986: 3 by-elections. 2 change hands: Pinner (1984, Con to Ind),
Roxbourne (1985, Con to Lib).
1986-1990: 2 by-elections. No seats change hands.
1990-1994: 5 by-elections. 2 change hands: Wemborough (1991, Con to
Lib Dem), Greenhill (1993, Con to Lib Dem).
1994-1998: 7 by-elections. 2 change hands: Ridgeway (1997, Lib Dem to
Lab), Roxeth (1997, Ind Res to Lab).
1998-2002: 3 by-elections. No seats change hands.
2002-2006: No by-elections. Just as well, given the officially "hung"
nature of the Council, as it wouldn't do anyone's blood pressure any
good...........
Making a grand total of 54 contests, of which 12 (or nearly a quarter)
change hands.
Adam Gray
news:do6cjk$pnk$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
Oops; there was another Broadway by-election which was the one Simon Knott
(re) gained in 1965. So five or four, depending on your view of Sands End.
Adam
David Boothroyd
rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
> In article <david-8064B6....@news.news.demon.net>,
> da...@election.demon.co.uk (David Boothroyd) wrote:
> > In article <memo.2005121...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk>,
> > rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
> > > Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other
> > > than Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
> >
> > Westminster has zero.
>
> In the whole 41 years? Wow!
Byelections since 1964 in Westminster:
Date Ward Cause Result
2/7/64 Baker Street (2) Aldermen C hold 2
2/7/64 Harrow Road Alderman Lab hold
2/7/64 St. James's Alderman C hold
2/7/64 Wilton Alderman C hold
8/7/65 St. James's Resignation C hold
18/8/66 Maida Vale Death C hold
8/6/67 Baker Street Resignation C hold
9/7/68 Baker Street Alderman C hold
9/7/68 Hyde Park Alderman C hold
9/7/68 Lord's Alderman C hold
9/7/68 Regent's Park Alderman C hold
28/11/68 Warwick Resignation C hold
15/7/71 Harrow Road Alderman Lab hold
23/3/73 Regent Street Resignation C hold
22/9/83 Belgrave Resignation C hold
1/11/84 Hamilton Terrace Resignation C hold
26/9/85 Church Street Death Lab hold
14/4/88 Lancaster Gate Resignation C hold
17/11/88 Victoria Resignation C hold
26/10/89 Lancaster Gate Resignation C hold
21/3/91 Regent's Park Resignation C hold
25/3/93 Hyde Park Resignation C hold
6/5/93 Harrow Road Death Lab hold
28/10/93 Millbank Death Lab hold
28/11/96 Millbank Resignation Lab hold
16/10/97 Queen's Park Resignation Lab hold
16/10/97 Westbourne Resignation Lab hold
10/6/99 Westbourne Resignation Lab hold
24/6/99 West End Resignation C hold
4/5/00 Church Street Resignation Lab hold
4/5/00 Harrow Road (2) Resignations Lab hold 2
5/4/01 Regent's Park Resignation C hold
21/7/05 Harrow Road Resignation Lab hold
The last seat in the predecessor councils to change hands in a
byelection was on 22nd November 1950 when Labour gained Town Ward,
Paddington Borough Council from the Conservatives.
The only other post-war changes were two Conservative gains from Labour
in Westminster City Council in 1948: on 6th May at St. John's ward, and
4th November at Great Marlborough Ward.
MJW
1989 Beulah Lab gain from Con
Total: 9
Adam Gray
news:david-F9146D....@news.news.demon.net...
> In article <memo.2005121...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk>,
> rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
>> In article <david-8064B6....@news.news.demon.net>,
>> da...@election.demon.co.uk (David Boothroyd) wrote:
>> > In article <memo.2005121...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk>,
>> > rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
>> > > Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other
>> > > than Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
>> >
>> > Westminster has zero.
>>
>> In the whole 41 years? Wow!
>
> Byelections since 1964 in Westminster:
Doh - now I feel obliged to do likewise with H&F:
Date Ward Cause Result
17/12/64 Margravine Death Lab hold (21% swing Lab-C)
18/03/65 Halford Death Lab hold (7% swing Lab-C)
19/01/67 Broadway Resignation L GAIN (20% swing Lab-L)
27/06/68 Starch Green Resignation C hold (8% C-Lab)
07/11/68 White City Death Lab hold (11% C-Lab) - White
City (and successors is the only ward in the borough that's never elected a
Conservative councillor)
06/02/69 St Stephen's Death C hold (4% C-Lab)
No byelections 1971-1974
12/09/74 Colehill Death Lab hold (5% Lab-C)
02/10/75 Sandford Resignation Lab hold (8% Lab-C) - Nick
Raynsford's resignation
20/11/75 Wormholt Death Lab hold (15% Lab-C)
01/04/76 Addison (x2) 1 Death, 1 Resignation Lab hold 1, C GAIN 1 (3%
Lab-C)
13/05/76 Town Resignation C hold (10% Lab-C)
28/06/79 Town Resignation C hold (1% C-Lab)
27/09/79 Palace Resignation C hold (3% C-Lab)
08/12/83 College Park & Old Oak Resignation Lab hold (5% All-Lab)
17/01/85 Margravine (x2) 1 Death, 1 Resignation Lab hold 2 (3% C-Lab) -
Tory candidates were Iain Duncan Smith and Simon Burns
01/10/87 Town Resignation C hold (14% Lab-C)
03/12/87 Palace Resignation C hold (15% Lab-C) Tories got 83%
of the vote - first council by-election I helped out on!!!
03/12/87 Starch Green Death Lab hold (7% Lab-C)
03/03/88 Margravine Death Lab hold (6% Lab-C)
28/04/88 College Park & Old Oak Death Lab hold (26% Lab-SLD)
25/05/89 Broadway Resignation Lab GAIN (9% SLD-Lab) Simon Knott's
ignominious resignation - SDP stood and got 7.5%
09/04/92 Eel Brook Resignation C hold (6% Lab-C) Andrew Robathan
MP resigns
16/07/92 Broadway Resignation Lab hold (10% Lab-C)
20/08/92 Palace Death C hold (8% Lab-C) turnout of
41% despite being August
24/09/92 Addison Resignation Lab hold (1 Lab-C) Bridget Prentice
MP resigns
03/12/92 Grove Resignation Lab hold (9% C-Lab)
28/01/93 Town Resignation C hold (0% Lab-C)
08/07/93 College Park & Old Oak Resignation (5% C-Lab)
25/01/96 Town Resignation C hold (3% C-Lab)
27/06/96 Crabtree Resignation Lab GAIN (3% C-Lab)
25/07/96 Sulivan Death C hold (4% C-Lab)
10/07/97 Gibbs Green Resignation Lab hold (15% C-Lab) Iain Coleman MP
resigns
10/06/99 Crabtree Resignation C hold (0% Lab-C)
12/09/02 Sands End Re-run of 1 seat Lab GAIN (1% Lab-C)
I might do Wandsworth, but they're fairly dull.
Adam
Adam Gray
Oh, and:
26/07/05 Ravenscourt Park Death C hold (7% Lab-C)
Adam
Adam Gray
"Adam Gray" <ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message news:
Wandsworth results:
Date Ward Cause Result
29/04/65 Queenstown Resignation Lab hold 8% Lab-C
05/05/66 Fairfield Death Lab hold 4% Lab-C
06/10/66 Nightingale Resignation C hold 4% Lab-C
15/06/67 Putney Death C hold 10% Lab-C
09/11/67 Balham Death C hold 11% Lab-C
27/06/68 Putney x2 ??? C hold 11% Lab-C
27/06/68 Nightingale x2 2 Resignations C hold 2 7% C-Lab
06/03/69 St John Resignation Lab GAIN 9% C-Lab
04/72 Graveney ??? Lab hold 1% Lab-C
04/72 Balham ??? Lab hold 4% Lab-C
26/10/72 Nightingale ??? C hold 1% C-Lab
18/04/73 Tooting ??? Lab hold 4% C-Lab
06/03/75 Southfield ??? C GAIN 7% Lab-C
22/01/76 Graveney ??? Lab hold 12% Lab-C
10/06/76 Southfield ??? C GAIN 11% Lab-C
04/11/76 Furzedown ??? C GAIN 15% Lab-C
09/12/76 Putney ??? C hold 8% Lab-C
03/07/80 Roehampton Resignation Lab hold 9% Lab-L
16/10/80 West Putney Resignation C hold 8% C-Lab
23/10/80 St John Resignation Lab hold 10% Lab-L
14/05/81 Latchmere Resignation Lab hold 19% C-Lab
22/07/82 Furzedown Death C hold 3% C-Lab
28/07/83 East Putney Resignation C hold 4% C-Lab Chris Chope MP
resigns (former council leader)
13/10/83 West Hill Resignation C hold 5% C-Lab Richard Hickmet
MP resigns
13/10/83 Earlsfield Death L/All GAIN 5% Lab-All
25/10/84 Fairfield Resignation Lab hold 8% C-Lab
27/06/85 St John Resignation Lab hold 5% C-Lab
19/11/87 Southfield Resignation C hold 1% Lab-C These two
by-elections were important because they determined control of the borough
28/09/89 Springfield Death C hold 2% C-Lab
12/12/91 West Putney Death C hold 3% C-Lab
02/07/98 West Putney Death C hold 1% C-Lab
01/07/99 Balham Resignation C hold 2% Lab-C
No by-elections 1998-2002
No by-elections 2002-2006
Adam
Tim Roll-Pickering
> 01/07/99 Balham Resignation C hold 2% Lab-C
> No by-elections 1998-2002
So what was going on in Balham and when?
A question also asked by many commuters for years!
Paul Hyett
Boothroyd wrote :
>
>Byelections since 1964 in Westminster:
>
>
>The last seat in the predecessor councils to change hands in a
>byelection was on 22nd November 1950 when Labour gained Town Ward,
>Paddington Borough Council from the Conservatives.
I'm assuming that seats do change hands on the main election day, so why
doesn't it happen in by-elections?
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham
Colin Rosenstiel
p...@nojunkmailplease.co.uk (Paul Hyett) wrote:
Westminster seats don't change hands much, though it's Kensington and
Chelsea that holds some kind of national record for electoral stasis.
Adam Gray
> In article <bA44SnCS...@activist.demon.co.uk>,
> p...@nojunkmailplease.co.uk (Paul Hyett) wrote:
>
>> In uk.politics.electoral on Mon, 19 Dec 2005 at 19:19:16, David
>> Boothroyd wrote :
>> >
>> >Byelections since 1964 in Westminster:
>> >
>> <snip>
>> >
>> >The last seat in the predecessor councils to change hands in a
>> >byelection was on 22nd November 1950 when Labour gained Town Ward,
>> >Paddington Borough Council from the Conservatives.
>>
>> I'm assuming that seats do change hands on the main election day, so
>> why
>> doesn't it happen in by-elections?
>
> Westminster seats don't change hands much, though it's Kensington and
> Chelsea that holds some kind of national record for electoral stasis.
...Which is that no council seat has changed between Labour and Conservative
due solely to swing since 1971, when Labour regained Norland, Pembridge and
St Charles wards after the 1968 rout.
For 1974 (and does anyone know why K&C had a boundary review four years
before everyone else and then again for the 1978 elections?) Norland and
Pembridge were split pretty much in two, so in 1974 became safe Tory wards
(while the other halves became stronger Labour wards), but that change was
entirely due to boundary commissioners, not local voters.
1978 two independents won seats in Golbourne ward, but Labour got them back
in 1982. That was the last change that has occurred because of vote swings.
Cremorne ward could well have been notionally Labour had it existed in 1998
(it was an amalgam of Labour South Stanley and half of very Tory Cheyne
ward) - the Tories won here (just) in 2002 (and where there has since been a
defection to the Lib Dems). But again, boundary changes mean this can't be
proven. Still, it has created a marginal ward in the borough for the first
time in quite a while.
Earls Court should also be marginal, but never really has been. St Charles
was very close in 2002 but this was a bad Labour year - in an average year
it's comfortably Labour., though it also lost a quite strongly Labour estate
in the far north of the ward in the boundary changes, which can't have
helped.
Adam
Mike Drew
David Boothroyd wrote:
> In article <memo.2005121...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk>,
> rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
>
>>In article <1134941007.2...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
>>Coli...@aol.com () wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Here is how the local press reported the High Barnet result:
>>>
>>>http://www.hendontimes.co.uk/display.var.662863.0.lib_dems_shock_win_a
>>>t_high_barnet_byelection.php
>>
>>"It is only the third time in the council's history that a seat has
>>changed hands in a by-election."
>>
>>Extraordinary! Any other London Boroughs with such a record (other than
>>Kensington and Chelsea, I suppose)?
>
>
> Westminster has zero.
I suspect there is a correlation with the amount of Lib/Lib Dem activity
in the Authority area. Liberals/Lib Dems have never to my knowledge have
any serious activist in either Borough.
If there is third party that votes can seriously choose then the
situation is less likely be be stable.
Of course there are some wards in other authorities that have an even
social mix which means that even without an active third party
relatively small changes in either national support or local activity
can result in wards changing hands.
>
Coli...@aol.com
years
before everyone else and then again for the 1978 elections?) "
Actually, K&C wasn't the only authority with boundary changes in 1974,
only four years before the major upheaval of 1978......
In Bexley, the new ward of Thamesmead East was created in 1974, as far
as I can tell from part of the previous Belvedere ward.
As for why K&C had this review, one can only speculate that the number
of councillors per ward of some of the wards was embarrassing.........
Earl's Court: 6 seats
Holland: 6 seats
Pembridge: 6 seats
Redcliffe: 7 seats
St. Charles: 6 sears
Adam Gray
news:1135108591.5...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Well maybe, although in Wales, large wards electing four councillors exist
today (in authorities like Cardiff for example) - and wards still existed in
1974 in K&C electing four councillors.
K&C also has the smallest wards in London...
Adam
David Boothroyd
"Adam Gray" <ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> 27/06/68 Putney x2 ??? C hold 11% Lab-C
> 27/06/68 Nightingale x2 2 Resignations C hold 2 7% C-Lab
Aren't these elections far more likely to be due to the choice of
Aldermen?
Quite interesting that it's more than 20 years since a byelection
was necessary because of a Labour councillor vacating their seat
in Wandsworth.
David Boothroyd
Barking and Dagenham: Last change 23/6/05 (Lab gain from BNP in
Goresbrook ward)
Barnet: Last change 15/12/05 (L Dem gain from C in High Barnet ward)
Bexley: Last change 6/5/93 (Lab gain from C in Upton ward)
Brent: Last change 7/11/91 (L Dem gain from Lab in Queen's Park ward)
Bromley: Last changes 5/7/01 (C gain from L Dem in Chelsfield and
Goddington ward, and from Lab in Mottingham ward)
Camden: Last change 20/2/03 (L Dem gain from Lab in Haverstock ward)
Croydon: Last change 19/11/92 (Lab gain from C in Upper Norwood ward)
Ealing: Last change 30/9/99 (C gain from Lab in Mandeville ward)
Enfield: Last change 21/8/97 (C gain 1 from Lab in Worcesters ward)
Greenwich: Last change 28/1/88 (SDP gain from Lab in Glyndon ward)
Hackney: Last change 20/1/05 (C gain from Lab in Queensbridge ward)
Hammersmith and Fulham: Last change 13/9/02 (Lab gain from C in Sands
End ward)
Haringey: Last change 29/1/04 (L Dem gain from Lab in Stroud Green
ward)
Harrow: Last changes 11/9/97 (Lab gain from L Dem in Ridgeway, and
from Ind RA in Roxeth ward)
Havering: Last change 15/7/04 (Lab gain from RA in Rainham and
Wennington ward)
Hillingdon: Last change 29/4/04 (L Dem gain from C in South Ruislip ward)
Hounslow: Last change 3/10/02 (Lab gain from C in Hounslow South ward)
Islington: Last change 16/12/99 (L Dem gain from Lab in Hillrise ward)
Kensington and Chelsea: Last change 2/7/81 (Lab gain from Golborne
Community Hundred in Golborne ward)
Kingston-upon-Thames: Last change 9/3/95 (L Dem gain from C in Malden
Manor ward)
Lambeth: Last change 7/8/03 (Lab gain from L Dem in Stockwell ward)
Lewisham: Last change 10/3/05 (L Dem gain from Lab in Lee Green ward)
Merton: Last change 9/11/00 (C gain from L Dem in West Barnes ward)
Newham: Last change 27/6/91 (C gain from Lab in Bemersyde ward)
Redbridge: Last change 24/7/03 (C gain from Lab in Valentines ward)
Richmond-upon-Thames: Last change 5/5/05 (L Dem gain from C in
Twickenham Riverside ward)
Southwark: Last change 7/12/95 (Lab gain from L Dem in Chaucer ward)
Sutton: Last change 7/3/85 (L gain from C in Carshalton North ward)
Tower Hamlets: Last change 9/9/04 (C gain from Lab in Millwall ward)
Waltham Forest: Last change 4/9/03 (L Dem gain from Lab in William
Morris ward)
Wandsworth: Last change 13/10/83 (L gain from Lab in Earlsfield ward)
Westminster: No byelection changes since 1950.
To put the councils in order, furthest away first, of the last
seat to change hands:
1950 - Westminster
1981 - Kensington and Chelsea
1983 - Wandsworth
1985 - Sutton
1988 - Greenwich
1991 - Newham, Brent
1992 - Croydon
1993 - Bexley
1995 - Kingston-upon-Thames, Southwark
1997 - Enfield, Harrow
1999 - Ealing, Islington
2000 - Merton
2001 - Bromley
2002 - Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow
2003 - Camden, Redbridge, Lambeth, Waltham Forest
2004 - Haringey, Hillingdon, Havering, Tower Hamlets
2005 - Hackney, Lewisham, Richmond-upon-Thames, Barking and
Dagenham, Barnet.
David Boothroyd
Paul Hyett <p...@nojunkmailplease.co.uk> wrote:
> In uk.politics.electoral on Mon, 19 Dec 2005 at 19:19:16, David
> Boothroyd wrote :
> >byelection was on 22nd November 1950 when Labour gained Town Ward,
> >Paddington Borough Council from the Conservatives.
>
> I'm assuming that seats do change hands on the main election day, so why
> doesn't it happen in by-elections?
There was a 1996 byelection in a marginal seat (Millbank) which Labour
held, only to lose two seats in the full council elections.
Labour historically tends to do better at byelections than at the
main council elections. Perception locally is that the Conservatives
election campaign slogan, used since the year dot in many different
versions, of "Vote for us because we give low taxes" does not apply
in a byelection where control of the council is not an issue.
The Conservatives are also successful at avoiding byelections in the
marginal wards they hold.
Adam Gray
> In article <do7ob5$qlk$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> "Adam Gray" <ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> 27/06/68 Putney x2 ??? C hold 11% Lab-C
>> 27/06/68 Nightingale x2 2 Resignations C hold 2 7% C-Lab
>
> Aren't these elections far more likely to be due to the choice of
> Aldermen?
>
> Quite interesting that it's more than 20 years since a byelection
> was necessary because of a Labour councillor vacating their seat
> in Wandsworth.
Well, between 1986 and 1990 there was only 1 seat between Labour and Tories
so discipline mattered, but since 1990 there have hardly been any Labour
councillors in Wandsworth to cause by-elections! (something, of course,
bound to change massively in 19 weeks' time...)
Incidentally, the last but one Labour leader of Wandsworth and MP for
Lambeth Central John Tilley died a few days ago.
Adam
Colin Rosenstiel
ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk (Adam Gray) wrote:
The Local Government Commission set its face against wards with more
than three councillors around 1997. I remember discussing it with them
at a a meeting I attended shortly after the 1997 General Election. The
Electoral Commission has adhered to the same policy. The Welsh bodies
seem to have continued their previous policy allowing wards with more
councillors.
Until the completion of the recent round of English Periodic Electoral
Reviews there were a few wards with over three councillors. Soham in
East Cambridgeshire DC had five, for example.
MJW
represent a ward. During the last review it was thought likely that
London would be moving towards a system of election by thirds similar
to the mets which was the main reasoning behing three members. Indeed
the only Boroughs that have wards with less then threee members are
Bromley, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hillingdon and Croydon, they are
mainly for geographical reasons.
I have no doubt if the review had been carried out later we would have
had a more mixed pattern of ward representation which was the situation
prior to 2002.
The only place where the number of members is defined is in Met Council
where it is has to be three member wards.
Martin
Coli...@aol.com
originally made no strong issue about 3 members per ward. I then spent
two months of my life perfecting a new ward system for Harrow with a
mix of 2 and 3 member wards, ready for the ruling Labour Group.
Eventually there was a very rigid recommendation (was it from the
ODPM?, can't quite remember) to go with three member wards except in
exceptional circumstances, on the assumption that rotation by thirds
would be introduced. Of course it wasn't in the end, with the result
that many Councils, like Harrow, were forced to adopt poor or imperfect
schemes. (Not in the sense of electoral equality.)
I am still in dispair about Harrow's internal boundaries, which have
wards straddling major geographical features, such as the West Coast
Main Line. (The ward in question is Marlborough.) Other wards that
perform geographical somersaults, all to fit in with the
three-member-per-ward dictat, are Rayners Lane, Belmont, Queensbury and
Hatch End (all across railways) and Harrow Weald (across a dual
carriageway).
Adam Gray
news:1135164674.9...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Did anyone respond to the Electoral Commission's recent consultation on the
conduct of electoral reviews - it was something I intended but kept putting
off and then remembered a couple of days ago, only to have missed the
deadline.
I wasn't at all impressed with the way the Hammersmith & Fulham review was
conducted; I think they should be more like parliamentary reviews with draft
proposals published first, then consulted on, rather than inviting
submissions and then some idiot thinking that they could satisfy everyone by
picking bits from all the submissions. So in H&F they started off by trying
to go with Labour's proposal on council size (45) except they decided on 46,
but then tried to overlay the Conservatives' plans (which were designed for
51 seats) on top AND adapt them to the five local people (all with no
boroughwide knowledge) who wrote in and said "well I think I live in X
community".
Martin mentioned that H&F has got two member wards because of "geographic"
issues - that is, frankly, bollocks. We can debate whether College Park &
Old Oak (the area around Wormwood Scrubs) might merit a 2 member ward given
that the Westway is a fairly substantial physical barrier (though if it is:
a] why did they cross it in the east of the ward where the elevated section
starts and b] why wasn't it a significant barrier in next door K&C, where
they've crossed it with the bizarre Notting Barnes ward?) - but the
brilliant logic of the Local Government Commission was that "if
Hammersmith's got a two member ward, Fulham must also have a two member ward
for balance". Could anyone point me to the PER rule that requires this
please? So we've got 2 member Palace Riverside (which, as it's a safe Tory
ward is better than a 3 member Palace Riverside!) but it's hardly
geographically isolated.
We managed to unpick some of these glitches between the draft and final
recommendations, but it's really no way to conduct a review.
To be fair, I think that Hammersmith got a duff review manager who paid no
attention to the reviews that had gone before (because H&F needed major
redrawing, it was in the last tranche, so we supposedly had the benefit of
seeing what had happened in 20+ other boroughs) and indeed to the rules of
the review.
Wow, I feel better getting that off my chest!
Adam
JohnLoony
Adam Gray wrote:
> Did anyone respond to the Electoral Commission's recent consultation on the
> conduct of electoral reviews - it was something I intended but kept putting
> off and then remembered a couple of days ago, only to have missed the
> deadline.
I did, but only to a limited extent. I suggested that there should be
more variation allowed in the electorates of wards (10% either way is
too restrictive when trying to fit wards to "natural communities")
(compared with 14.3% for the parliamentary review) and that there
should be a presumption in favour of single-member wards. Both of
these would be justified for FPTP reasons; the FPTP people always go on
about the "strong link" between a member and his/her local community
and the correlation between a ward and the community it covers.
I suggest that you should write in with your concerns anyway, even if
it is already beyond the deadline. Someone will presumably read it
anyway and might learn something.
Adam Gray
"JohnLoony" <john....@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1135191163.3...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> Adam Gray wrote:
>
>> Did anyone respond to the Electoral Commission's recent consultation on
>> the
>> conduct of electoral reviews - it was something I intended but kept
>> putting
>> off and then remembered a couple of days ago, only to have missed the
>> deadline.
>
> I did, but only to a limited extent. I suggested that there should be
> more variation allowed in the electorates of wards (10% either way is
> too restrictive when trying to fit wards to "natural communities")
> (compared with 14.3% for the parliamentary review) and that there
> should be a presumption in favour of single-member wards. Both of
> these would be justified for FPTP reasons; the FPTP people always go on
> about the "strong link" between a member and his/her local community
> and the correlation between a ward and the community it covers.
As an "FPTP person" I strongly agree on your second point about single
member wards, but disagree about the variance point - this goes to one of my
other gripes about the H&F PER - in practically all the previous London
reviews the Local Government Commission went not just for variances of less
than 10%, but actually of 3% or less - and made it quite clear that there
would need to be exceptional reasons for tolerating a greater than 3%
variance. So we (and the Tories) came up with proposals all within 3%
(which produce convoluted boundaries - look at Avonmore & Brook Green for
instance) and the Commission comes back with variances of up to 7% (plus
convoluted boundaries)...grrrrrr.
> I suggest that you should write in with your concerns anyway, even if
> it is already beyond the deadline. Someone will presumably read it
> anyway and might learn something.
May well - thanks.
Adam
David Boothroyd
"Adam Gray" <ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> "David Boothroyd" <da...@election.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:david-40E0D6....@news.news.demon.net...
> > In article <do7ob5$qlk$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> > "Adam Gray" <ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >> 27/06/68 Putney x2 ??? C hold 11% Lab-C
> >> 27/06/68 Nightingale x2 2 Resignations C hold 2 7% C-Lab
> >
> > Aren't these elections far more likely to be due to the choice of
> > Aldermen?
> >
> > Quite interesting that it's more than 20 years since a byelection
> > was necessary because of a Labour councillor vacating their seat
> > in Wandsworth.
>
> Well, between 1986 and 1990 there was only 1 seat between Labour and Tories
> so discipline mattered, but since 1990 there have hardly been any Labour
> councillors in Wandsworth to cause by-elections!
Westminster has had just the same number of Labour councillors, yet
we've had plenty of byelections in Labour-held wards.
> Incidentally, the last but one Labour leader of Wandsworth and MP for
> Lambeth Central John Tilley died a few days ago.
Not to be confused with the John Tilley who is a Liberal Democrat in
south west London. He was also the Labour candidate in Southwark
and Bermondsey in the 1983 general election, selected at the last
minute.
Adam Gray
> In article <doa9r3$n2f$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> "Adam Gray" <ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> "David Boothroyd" <da...@election.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:david-40E0D6....@news.news.demon.net...
>> > In article <do7ob5$qlk$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
>> > "Adam Gray" <ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> 27/06/68 Putney x2 ??? C hold 11% Lab-C
>> >> 27/06/68 Nightingale x2 2 Resignations C hold 2 7% C-Lab
>> >
>> > Aren't these elections far more likely to be due to the choice of
>> > Aldermen?
>> >
>> > Quite interesting that it's more than 20 years since a byelection
>> > was necessary because of a Labour councillor vacating their seat
>> > in Wandsworth.
>>
>> Well, between 1986 and 1990 there was only 1 seat between Labour and
>> Tories
>> so discipline mattered, but since 1990 there have hardly been any Labour
>> councillors in Wandsworth to cause by-elections!
>
> Westminster has had just the same number of Labour councillors, yet
> we've had plenty of byelections in Labour-held wards.
Hmm, the difference being though that the wards we're left with in
Westminster are utterly impregnable and hence there's less worry that a
by-election will cost us a seat - the Labour held wards in Wandsworth are
not anywhere near the same (even though they should be, and are in general
elections).
Adam
MJW
the case in Croydon, Hillingdon and to some extent Biggin Hill and
Darwin in Bromley. The main exceptions were Hammersmith & Fulham along
with Bromley were we had a few bizzare two member which had little
justification (Crystal Palace and Shortlands), the Palace Riverside
makes little sense as a two member though at least I can see the case
for College Park and Old Oak.
On another note from speaking to my ERO he is expecting the next local
electoral review for Merton not until the end of the next decade twenty
years after the last. While the last of set of London ward boundaries
lasted from 1978-2002 (1982-2002 in the case of Enfield), surely this
set will not be round twenty bearing in mind the significant
disparities that are already be starting to appear in some London
Boroughs.
Colin Rosenstiel
ad...@nospamfulhamreach.fsnet.co.uk (Adam Gray) wrote:
> Did anyone respond to the Electoral Commission's recent consultation
> on the conduct of electoral reviews - it was something I intended but
> kept putting off and then remembered a couple of days ago, only to
> have missed the deadline.
I had something to do with some submissions, in particular that of
Cambridge City Council. It should be appended to some Civic Affairs
Committee minutes if anyone wants to see it.
> I wasn't at all impressed with the way the Hammersmith & Fulham
> review was conducted; I think they should be more like parliamentary
> reviews with draft proposals published first, then consulted on,
> rather than inviting submissions and then some idiot thinking that
> they could satisfy everyone by picking bits from all the submissions.
> So in H&F they started off by trying to go with Labour's proposal on
> council size (45) except they decided on 46, but then tried to
> overlay the Conservatives' plans (which were designed for 51 seats)
> on top AND adapt them to the five local people (all with no
> boroughwide knowledge) who wrote in and said "well I think I live in
> X community".
They did warn us that not agreeing locally on council size would make
their job harder considering more than one set of proposals. Labour
didn't listen, wanting 12 wards instead of the existing 14 we wanted.
Their proposals didn't fare well as a result (and for other reasons like
they stirred up huge opposition in one area where the proposals were
particularly stupid and maths wasn't their strong point either).
> Martin mentioned that H&F has got two member wards because of
> "geographic" issues - that is, frankly, bollocks. We can debate
> whether College Park & Old Oak (the area around Wormwood Scrubs)
> might merit a 2 member ward given that the Westway is a fairly
> substantial physical barrier (though if it is: a] why did they cross
> it in the east of the ward where the elevated section starts and b]
> why wasn't it a significant barrier in next door K&C, where they've
> crossed it with the bizarre Notting Barnes ward?) - but the brilliant
> logic of the Local Government Commission was that "if Hammersmith's
> got a two member ward, Fulham must also have a two member ward for
> balance". Could anyone point me to the PER rule that requires this
> please? So we've got 2 member Palace Riverside (which, as it's a safe
> Tory ward is better than a 3 member Palace Riverside!) but it's
> hardly geographically isolated.
>
> We managed to unpick some of these glitches between the draft and
> final recommendations, but it's really no way to conduct a review.
>
> To be fair, I think that Hammersmith got a duff review manager who
> paid no attention to the reviews that had gone before (because H&F
> needed major redrawing, it was in the last tranche, so we supposedly
> had the benefit of seeing what had happened in 20+ other boroughs)
> and indeed to the rules of the review.
>
> Wow, I feel better getting that off my chest!
Bigger wow! A contribution from Adam I largely agree with!
The quality of some past reviews has been worse in terms of
council-originated material than errors by the Commission, I think.
For example, it seems plain that a number of Districts didn't talk to
their Counties about population projections. I have looked at rather a
lot of Lincoln review reports, initially because it was quoted in
discussion of our PER and more recently because it's having an FER so I
had another look. The past projections were laughably wrong - an
electorate rise has turned into a larger drop. But the FER projections
are no better. Despite the evidence of reality they are still projecting
an electorate rise in the next 5 years.
Many projections turn out to be anticipated numbers of planning
permissions for housing with no account taken of other changes within
the existing housing stock. Since County Councils have to project
population numbers ahead to plan services they can provide much more
realistic projections. Ours certainly did.
I think the bigger point we called for was a local meeting nor hearing
element in the review process. Some arrant nonsense was included in
submissions in response to the draft proposals with no opportunity to
challenge them. The worst examples I came across were not in our PER but
in that of a nearby council.
Colin Rosenstiel
martin...@aol.com (MJW) wrote:
> On another note from speaking to my ERO he is expecting the next local
> electoral review for Merton not until the end of the next decade
> twenty years after the last. While the last of set of London ward
> boundaries lasted from 1978-2002 (1982-2002 in the case of Enfield),
> surely this set will not be round twenty bearing in mind the significant
> disparities that are already be starting to appear in some London
> Boroughs.
The disparities should be picked up by the Electoral Commission through
their Further Electoral Reviews programme. There is no need for a
/general/ review before the end of the next decade, IMHO.
JohnLoony
Adam Gray wrote:
> As an "FPTP person" I strongly agree on your second point about single
> member wards, but disagree about the variance point - this goes to one of my
> other gripes about the H&F PER - in practically all the previous London
> reviews the Local Government Commission went not just for variances of less
> than 10%, but actually of 3% or less - and made it quite clear that there
> would need to be exceptional reasons for tolerating a greater than 3%
> variance. So we (and the Tories) came up with proposals all within 3%
> (which produce convoluted boundaries - look at Avonmore & Brook Green for
> instance) and the Commission comes back with variances of up to 7% (plus
> convoluted boundaries)...grrrrrr.
Gadzooks! 3%?! That sort of variation is a triumph of mathematics
over virtually everything else. In Croydon there were a few dodgy
changes in some wards which were only done for numerical reasons (e.g.
the north west corner of Fairfield was chopped off and given to Broad
Green, even though it is almost completely separated by a railway
line).
The idea of sticking too closely to an average quota is what causes
absurdities such as "Gateshead East and Washington West" or "Knowsley
North and Sefton East". People who support FPTP usually talk about the
need to have wards / constituencies which closely reflect local
communities, so that there can be proper representation by the MP /
councillor. FPTP people say that arguments about proportionality are
"missing the point" etc. If this is so, and if this is what they truly
believe, then I think they should go the whole hog and have much wider
variation in electorates. A hypothetical example which I have in my
mind is a small county which has two main towns, with electorates of
50,000 and 90,000. The current arrangements would have one
constituency which covers the smaller town and a chunk of (or suburbs
of) the larger town, and a second constituency covering most (but not
all) of the larger town. They would be called "A and B West" and "B"
respectively. It would be more logical to have two natural
constituencies fo 50,000 and 90,000 instead of two lots of 70,000. If
it is allowed for the Isle of Wight and Western Isles, then it should
be allowed elsewhere as well.
The electorates of the wards in Croydon have fluctuated up and down
every year since the review anyway, due to varying rates of
registration. Much of this is due to whether people are "expecting" a
main election in the forthcoming year.
For example, in the just-happened Fairfield by-election, we had to
start the campaign with the old register (published on 1.12.04) and
finish with the new one (1.1.205). The total electorate of the ward
went down by 640 between the two, but 303 of this drop hapened in just
one of the seven polling districts, and a further 176 happened in
another. If there is so much fluctuation in the electorates from one
year to the next, then it does not make much sense to talk about the
need for a new review, or about inequalities which have built up since
2000.
John M Ward
JohnLoony <john....@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> Adam Gray wrote:
> > As an "FPTP person" I strongly agree on your second point about
> > single member wards, but disagree about the variance point - this
> > goes to one of my other gripes about the H&F PER - in practically
> > all the previous London reviews the Local Government Commission
> > went not just for variances of less than 10%, but actually of 3%
> > or less - and made it quite clear that there would need to be
> > exceptional reasons for tolerating a greater than 3% variance.
This is much the same as the policy applied here, with the effect that
our new ward boundaries (w.e.f. May 2003) are neatly mathematically
consistent (handy for bureaucrats, presumably) but split communities in
various cases. For example, one former community-based ward -- called
Warren Wood -- was split between three new wards, including my own.
> > So we (and the Tories) came up with proposals all within 3%
> > (which produce convoluted boundaries - look at Avonmore & Brook
> > Green for instance) and the Commission comes back with variances
> > of up to 7% (plus convoluted boundaries)...grrrrrr.
I do wonder if the Commission really understands what it is doing, and
whose agenda they are applying. As regulars here will know, I don't
like outsiders trying to dictate anything that is a purely internal
(i.e. local) matter, and these gov't agencies should be made to *serve*
and *assist* rather than push their preferences onto folk who actually
know the area in question.
As far as number of members per ward is concerned, although I have
thought very seriously about one member wards, that would mean rather a
lot of wards and many would not be able to be fitted sensibly to
real-life communities which don't usually tend to be of a suitable size.
My overall preference is for two-member wards where possible, and this
is largely to provide some cover for holidays, illnesses and other
periodic inabilities of one member to do the job. I strongly believe
that, at a local level at least, it should be possible for the public to
be able to contact a local elected representative at any time (well, not
the middle of the night, but you know what I mean!)
> Gadzooks! 3%?! That sort of variation is a triumph of mathematics
> over virtually everything else.
Precisely!
> In Croydon there were a few dodgy changes in some wards which were
> only done for numerical reasons (e.g. the north west corner of
> Fairfield was chopped off and given to Broad Green, even though it is
> almost completely separated by a railway line).
Sounds familiar: we now have one ward that is on one side of a major
road -- apart from a lrngth of one road on the other side, to make the
numbers add up conveniently.
> The idea of sticking too closely to an average quota is what causes
> absurdities such as "Gateshead East and Washington West" or "Knowsley
> North and Sefton East". People who support FPTP usually talk about
> the need to have wards / constituencies which closely reflect local
> communities, so that there can be proper representation by the MP /
> councillor. FPTP people say that arguments about proportionality are
> "missing the point" etc. If this is so, and if this is what they
> truly believe, then I think they should go the whole hog and have
> much wider variation in electorates.
Though I'm not exactly an "FPTP person" myself (I'm still hopeful that a
better /third way/ will one day be devised) I'd go along with this,
provided it didn't go to extremes.
The amount of work a local councillor has to do depends on a whole range
of ingredients, such as whether the residents of a particular area tend
to be quiet or vocal and regular/frequent users of their councillor(s),
whether there are any major local issues in the area (or expected to
develop soon), how far apart the homes are and how hilly the area is
(these both affect the effort one has to put in while canvassing, for
example) and the nature of activity in the area -- dormitory, farming,
industry, commerce, higher education or whatever.
> A hypothetical example which I have in my mind is a small county
> which has two main towns, with electorates of 50,000 and 90,000. The
> current arrangements would have one constituency which covers the
> smaller town and a chunk of (or suburbs of) the larger town, and a
> second constituency covering most (but not all) of the larger town.
> They would be called "A and B West" and "B" respectively. It would
> be more logical to have two natural constituencies fo 50,000 and
> 90,000 instead of two lots of 70,000. If it is allowed for the Isle
> of Wight and Western Isles, then it should be allowed elsewhere as
> well.
Makes sense to me, though there are special considerations affecting the
Isle of Wight as a community that essentially operates for such half the
year and "shuts down" during the winter period. It doesn't fit in with
any other part of that sub-region.
> The electorates of the wards in Croydon have fluctuated up and down
> every year since the review anyway, due to varying rates of
> registration. Much of this is due to whether people are "expecting"
> a main election in the forthcoming year.
To its credit, the Commission dealing with ward boundaries does at least
look forward to projected electorate sizes roughly at the mid-point of
the period that the new boundaries will encompass. Parliamentary
boudaries, though, are reviewed based on historic data. Not only is
that inconsistent, it is also not very intelligent. We get a better and
more sensible result at local 9ward) review level, though not ideal.
> For example, in the just-happened Fairfield by-election, we had to
> start the campaign with the old register (published on 1.12.04) and
> finish with the new one (1.1.205).
That is bound to happen when changes coincide with local elections; but
when else could the changes be made? Would everyone need to be
re-elected anyway, especially if there is also a change in the number of
councillors (as we had, reducing drastically -- from 80 to 55)?
The worst situation must be where there is "voting by thirds", as any
boundary changes are certain to impact two-thirds of the sitting
members, who will no longer be in the "right" places and indeed might no
longer have seats anyway -- as would have affected 25 of our members
back in 2003 if we had operated such a system.
No: they'd have to have an "all out" election that year, and then a
third of them would have to re-stand the following year and another
third the year after that. It's just a messy system all round...
> The total electorate of the ward went down by 640 between the two,
> but 303 of this drop hapened in just one of the seven polling
> districts, and a further 176 happened in another. If there is so
> much fluctuation in the electorates from one year to the next, then
> it does not make much sense to talk about the need for a new review,
> or about inequalities which have built up since 2000.
The level of registration cannot be used in itself as a factor in
determining ward sizes, even trends in any specific area, but purely as
an illustration it is a useful point to raise.
Overall, I do hope that by (or, even better, long before) the time our
next ward boundary review is due, this "numeric rule" will have been
more-or-less abandoned, and keeping communities together within wards
becomes the dominant criterion for all future rviews.
--
John M Ward - see http://www.horsted.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
Conservative Councillor for Rochester South & Horsted ward, Medway
* Oppose electoral fraud, especially through postal votes
* Scrap the ODPM, SEERA, and the Standards Board for England
* Return all local decisions to local people
Adam Gray
news:memo.2005122...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk...
So the commission should split reviews into two: council size and thereafter
ward boundaries: they are distinctly different issues (one is about
effective, efficient council management and the other relates to defining
coherent communities) instead of dealing with both a the same time, and
ending up in the mess we finished with.
Adam
Adam Gray
>
> Adam Gray wrote:
>> As an "FPTP person" I strongly agree on your second point about single
>> member wards, but disagree about the variance point - this goes to one of
>> my
>> other gripes about the H&F PER - in practically all the previous London
>> reviews the Local Government Commission went not just for variances of
>> less
>> than 10%, but actually of 3% or less - and made it quite clear that there
>> would need to be exceptional reasons for tolerating a greater than 3%
>> variance. So we (and the Tories) came up with proposals all within 3%
>> (which produce convoluted boundaries - look at Avonmore & Brook Green for
>> instance) and the Commission comes back with variances of up to 7% (plus
>> convoluted boundaries)...grrrrrr.
>
>
> Gadzooks! 3%?! That sort of variation is a triumph of mathematics
> over virtually everything else. In Croydon there were a few dodgy
> changes in some wards which were only done for numerical reasons (e.g.
> the north west corner of Fairfield was chopped off and given to Broad
> Green, even though it is almost completely separated by a railway
> line).
>
> The idea of sticking too closely to an average quota is what causes
> absurdities such as "Gateshead East and Washington West" or "Knowsley
> North and Sefton East".
Well possibly, or it could just be the Commission's penchant for verbosity.
In the latter case you cited, there was no need for them to change the name
from Crosby - indeed in the new boundaries coming in for that seat it's
pretty much the same as the old Crosby but they've chosen to call it Sefton
Central (or Sefton East, I can't quite remember) - better, but still longer.
And what was wrong with Langbaurgh instead of Middlesbrough South and East
Cleveland?
And there's also inconsistent logic - the reason Southwark North &
Bermondsey isn't called just Southwark (which of course the area is) is
apparently to avoid confusion with the borough of the same name, but when
for the same reasons we suggested Fulham & Hammersmith (Fulham also being
somewhat larger than Hammersmith) we ended up with Hammersmith & Fulham, the
same name as it's corresponding borough. Grrr. Should just have called it
Fulham, imho.
> People who support FPTP usually talk about the
> need to have wards / constituencies which closely reflect local
> communities, so that there can be proper representation by the MP /
> councillor. FPTP people say that arguments about proportionality are
> "missing the point" etc. If this is so, and if this is what they truly
> believe, then I think they should go the whole hog and have much wider
> variation in electorates.
The arguments about each representative having approximately the same number
of electors are entirely distinct from arguments about whether the House of
Commons should reflect as closely as possible the votes cast across the
whole nation. There's no question that the basis of representation should
be equal - or as close as possible to it - but the argument that general
elections are about making the House of Commons reflect the nation and not
about picking a local representative and a national government are
ridiculous and will continue to be so no matter how much Colin and his
buddies seek to make them sound intelligent.
> A hypothetical example which I have in my
> mind is a small county which has two main towns, with electorates of
> 50,000 and 90,000. The current arrangements would have one
> constituency which covers the smaller town and a chunk of (or suburbs
> of) the larger town, and a second constituency covering most (but not
> all) of the larger town. They would be called "A and B West" and "B"
> respectively. It would be more logical to have two natural
> constituencies fo 50,000 and 90,000 instead of two lots of 70,000. If
> it is allowed for the Isle of Wight and Western Isles, then it should
> be allowed elsewhere as well.
John Maples is actually piloting a private members' bill through about
electoral equality (ee) at the moment. I agree with a lot of what he says:
things like having one boundary commission for the whole UK, scrapping the
minimum representation guarantees for Wales and Ireland. He's also talking
about allowing county boundaries to be crossed to ensure better ee (he was
talking about the county he represents - Warwickshire - which has gone from
five large seats to six small seats in the current review...of course
returning those parts of "The West Midlands" that used to be in Warwickshire
would also help him out here). He was also talking about a PER every
parliamentary term, which I don't think is necessary.
He does have a reasonable point that the electorates used in the (still
incomplete) current PER are 2000 numbers, and won't come in until 2009/10 -
I suspect that if we used today's electorates, Oxfordshire (for example)
would merit another seat next time (which would be in the north/Oxford area
and might make Banbury somewhat more competitive), but they're not getting
one.
I'd actually like to see something like (what used to be) the US way of
redistricting - a capped number of MPs, with growing areas gaining and
shrinking areas losing - but within the cap; and the review held every
decade following the census. That would require a more accurate census, but
the population estimates would be more accurate than electorates.
I say "what used to be" in respect of the US way because we've, in the past
couple of years seen the outrageous development of parties (and it's been
only the Republicans who've done this) winning control of the state
legislature and immediately redistricting the state along more favourable
partisan lines - this is going to the Supreme Court and I suspect they might
put a stop to it (even though the Constitution doesn't specifically and
explicitly prohibit it - which seems to be the sole issue for some of the
justices there - it's clearly not the intent or the custom for there to be
interim redistricting and if they don't the system will descend into chaos).
Of course, if they handed responsibility for redistricting to the Federal
Elections Commission, that would be the end of that entirely but the
"States' Rights" people would go mad, and as we know, turkeys don't vote for
Christmas.
Anyway, back to the issue at hand...!
> The electorates of the wards in Croydon have fluctuated up and down
> every year since the review anyway, due to varying rates of
> registration. Much of this is due to whether people are "expecting" a
> main election in the forthcoming year.
Sure, but that should be a boroughwide fluctuation rather than a
ward-by-ward disparity - although wards that are worked harder by political
parties may well see larger changes. You also seem to be making the case
for using another measure aside from electorate to measure population.
Adam
Colin Rosenstiel
Ward) wrote:
In my experience the Commission is glad of well thought out local
contributions and will adopt them readily. We found that.
> As far as number of members per ward is concerned, although I have
> thought very seriously about one member wards, that would mean rather
> a lot of wards and many would not be able to be fitted sensibly to
> real-life communities which don't usually tend to be of a suitable
> size.
Agree. My three member ward would be a bit of a nonsense as three single
member wards, as would most of those in Cambridge.
> My overall preference is for two-member wards where possible, and this
> is largely to provide some cover for holidays, illnesses and other
> periodic inabilities of one member to do the job. I strongly believe
> that, at a local level at least, it should be possible for the public
> to be able to contact a local elected representative at any time (well,
> not the middle of the night, but you know what I mean!)
And when one councillor is unavailable, in a three member ward the
response rate will keep up to speed, but not in two member wards. Anyway
elections by thirds make councils more accountable.
> > Gadzooks! 3%?! That sort of variation is a triumph of mathematics
> > over virtually everything else.
>
> Precisely!
We questioned this obsession of the commission. There is a larger degree
of uncertainty in the projections than that.
> > In Croydon there were a few dodgy changes in some wards which were
> > only done for numerical reasons (e.g. the north west corner of
> > Fairfield was chopped off and given to Broad Green, even though it
> > is almost completely separated by a railway line).
>
> Sounds familiar: we now have one ward that is on one side of a major
> road -- apart from a lrngth of one road on the other side, to make the
> numbers add up conveniently.
We do have main roads as boundaries with both sides of it on the same
side of the boundary. This avoids splitting the sub-communities that
most main roads are and makes it easier to get even numbers. It looks
more odd on the map than the traditional boundary down the middle but
more sense in the real world.
> > The idea of sticking too closely to an average quota is what causes
> > absurdities such as "Gateshead East and Washington West" or
> > "Knowsley North and Sefton East". People who support FPTP usually
> > talk about the need to have wards / constituencies which closely
> > reflect local communities, so that there can be proper
> > representation by the MP / councillor. FPTP people say that
> > arguments about proportionality are "missing the point" etc. If
> > this is so, and if this is what they truly believe, then I think
> > they should go the whole hog and have much wider variation in
> > electorates.
>
> Though I'm not exactly an "FPTP person" myself (I'm still hopeful
> that a better /third way/ will one day be devised) I'd go along with
> this, provided it didn't go to extremes.
STV!
Indeed. One benefit of the planned merger of the commissions is sorting
out the rules like this.
> > For example, in the just-happened Fairfield by-election, we had to
> > start the campaign with the old register (published on 1.12.04) and
> > finish with the new one (1.1.205).
>
> That is bound to happen when changes coincide with local elections;
> but when else could the changes be made? Would everyone need to be
> re-elected anyway, especially if there is also a change in the number
> of councillors (as we had, reducing drastically -- from 80 to 55)?
The 1st December arrangement means that publication is terribly rushed
with errors creeping in.
> The worst situation must be where there is "voting by thirds", as any
> boundary changes are certain to impact two-thirds of the sitting
> members, who will no longer be in the "right" places and indeed might
> no longer have seats anyway -- as would have affected 25 of our members
> back in 2003 if we had operated such a system.
We had all-up elections with boundary changes in 1976 and 2004. In 1968
they allocated councillors to the new wards which was a bit strange for
those whose ward was abolished and found themselves representing a new
ward across the city.
> No: they'd have to have an "all out" election that year, and then a
> third of them would have to re-stand the following year and another
> third the year after that. It's just a messy system all round...
That is the rule these days.
> > The total electorate of the ward went down by 640 between the two,
> > but 303 of this drop hapened in just one of the seven polling
> > districts, and a further 176 happened in another. If there is so
> > much fluctuation in the electorates from one year to the next, then
> > it does not make much sense to talk about the need for a new review,
> > or about inequalities which have built up since 2000.
>
> The level of registration cannot be used in itself as a factor in
> determining ward sizes, even trends in any specific area, but purely
> as an illustration it is a useful point to raise.
>
> Overall, I do hope that by (or, even better, long before) the time our
> next ward boundary review is due, this "numeric rule" will have been
> more-or-less abandoned, and keeping communities together within wards
> becomes the dominant criterion for all future rviews.
You have to have some reasonable degree of equality.
Adam Gray
>> I do wonder if the Commission really understands what it is doing, and
>> whose agenda they are applying. As regulars here will know, I don't
>> like outsiders trying to dictate anything that is a purely internal
>> (i.e. local) matter, and these gov't agencies should be made to
>> *serve* and *assist* rather than push their preferences onto folk who
>> actually know the area in question.
>
> In my experience the Commission is glad of well thought out local
> contributions and will adopt them readily. We found that.
In my experience the Commission adopts any local contributions however
ill-thought through or lacking an overall plan far too readily...a local
inquiry, like in a constituency review, would help sort the sensible
suggestions from the "I fink my street shoud be in Hammersmith Broadway ward
cos that's where I do my shopping"
>> As far as number of members per ward is concerned, although I have
>> thought very seriously about one member wards, that would mean rather
>> a lot of wards and many would not be able to be fitted sensibly to
>> real-life communities which don't usually tend to be of a suitable
>> size.
>
> Agree. My three member ward would be a bit of a nonsense as three single
> member wards, as would most of those in Cambridge.
You can go back to disagreeing with me now Colin: Rubbish! As if anyone
locally cares which council ward they're in, or that their next door
street's not in the same ward as theirs. County councils have managed
perfectly well with single member wards as the norm.
>> My overall preference is for two-member wards where possible, and this
>> is largely to provide some cover for holidays, illnesses and other
>> periodic inabilities of one member to do the job. I strongly believe
>> that, at a local level at least, it should be possible for the public
>> to be able to contact a local elected representative at any time (well,
>> not the middle of the night, but you know what I mean!)
>
> And when one councillor is unavailable, in a three member ward the
> response rate will keep up to speed, but not in two member wards. Anyway
> elections by thirds make councils more accountable.
That assumes i) the constituent knows they've three councillors and have
written to all three of you; ii) that all three councillors are as active as
each other; iii) that it's justifiable for useless councillors to be coseted
away from the public by the other one or two and iv) that a three member
ward has councillors from the same party representing it.
And elections by thirds i) don't really make councils more accountable; just
more unstable and ii) aren't precluded by having single member wards -
indeed single member wards with a different third of the borough up each
time enhance political engagement because, for instance, Labour working in
currently what are perceived to be safely Tory wards in south Fulham, and
Tories working in safely Labour wards in north Hammersmith which we can't
conceivably bother with in all-borough elections would raise turnout and
debate among residents who otherwise hear none.
Adam
Tim Roll-Pickering
> John Maples is actually piloting a private members' bill through about
> electoral equality (ee) at the moment. I agree with a lot of what he
> says: things like having one boundary commission for the whole UK,
> scrapping the minimum representation guarantees for Wales and Ireland.
Oh boy! Would it still allow the Boundary Commission wiggle room when it's
next to impossible to produce a satisfactory arrangement on the numbers
alone? There was a post on this newsgroup a while ago outlining a sixteen
seat Northern Ireland and next to none of the changes would have been
popular.
> He's also talking about allowing county boundaries to be crossed to ensure
> better ee (he was talking about the county he represents - Warwickshire -
> which has gone from five large seats to six small seats in the current
> review...of course returning those parts of "The West Midlands" that used
> to be in Warwickshire would also help him out here).
How about allowing more than two London boroughs to be combined? Some of the
anomalies stem from the Boundary Commission's refusal to do this and instead
produce loads more undersized seats.
> I say "what used to be" in respect of the US way because we've, in the
> past couple of years seen the outrageous development of parties (and it's
> been only the Republicans who've done this) winning control of the state
> legislature and immediately redistricting the state along more favourable
> partisan lines
I'm no fan of either US party, but let's have a sense of perspective. A good
number of these redistributions have been motivated by pre existing Democrat
gerrymanders. And the Democrats once tried to redistrict Newt Gingrich out
of Congress at the height of his power. The Republicans are frankly doing
little more than following the accepted practice.
> - this is going to the Supreme Court and I suspect they might put a stop
> to it
Hasn't the Supreme Court previously ruled that party based gerrymandering is
okay?
> Of course, if they handed responsibility for redistricting to the Federal
> Elections Commission, that would be the end of that entirely but the
> "States' Rights" people would go mad, and as we know, turkeys don't vote
> for Christmas.
They may not, but perhaps they could be persuaded to vote for stopping
future early Christmases and so take the power to gerrymander out of
partisan hands and to an independent commission (aren't there a few states
that already have this?) before they lose power.
JohnLoony
person and I am not in favour of single-member wards. But as an STV
fan, I would prefer wards with 3 or 4 members rather than 5 or 6 - so
the existing ward boundaries would suffice in a lot of cases. The only
main changes which would be needed in Croydon would be to merge
Fieldway and New Addington (2 + 2 = 4) and to abolish Heathfield and
distribute the bits to Selsdon and Shirley.
Adam Gray
news:410difF...@individual.net...
> Adam Gray wrote:
>
>> John Maples is actually piloting a private members' bill through about
>> electoral equality (ee) at the moment. I agree with a lot of what he
>> says: things like having one boundary commission for the whole UK,
>> scrapping the minimum representation guarantees for Wales and Ireland.
>
> Oh boy! Would it still allow the Boundary Commission wiggle room when it's
> next to impossible to produce a satisfactory arrangement on the numbers
> alone? There was a post on this newsgroup a while ago outlining a sixteen
> seat Northern Ireland and next to none of the changes would have been
> popular.
But on existing rules they're over-represented. They don't have their
statutory minimum of17: they've got 19 seats. And Wales also has more than
its stat min (and the recs for Wales have huge disparities too - look at the
difference between the size of the Cardiff seats and the Valleys seats, for
instance). They merit 32 on the English electorate figures.
> How about allowing more than two London boroughs to be combined? Some of
> the anomalies stem from the Boundary Commission's refusal to do this and
> instead produce loads more undersized seats.
He's asking for that. I'm less supportive of that (although it's happened in
this review in the West Midlands I seem to recall - doesn't Dudley, which is
amalgamated with Sandwell also donate or take a ward to/from Wolverhampton?)
simply because there are so many variations of borough combinations and I
don't think these have been as widely applied as they could be yet.
>> I say "what used to be" in respect of the US way because we've, in the
>> past couple of years seen the outrageous development of parties (and it's
>> been only the Republicans who've done this) winning control of the state
>> legislature and immediately redistricting the state along more favourable
>> partisan lines
>
> I'm no fan of either US party, but let's have a sense of perspective. A
> good number of these redistributions have been motivated by pre existing
> Democrat gerrymanders. And the Democrats once tried to redistrict Newt
> Gingrich out of Congress at the height of his power. The Republicans are
> frankly doing little more than following the accepted practice.
No, you're missing the point Tim - I agree with you that the process has
been gerrymandered by both parties and shouldn't be. What's happening in
America now is fundamentally different, because what's happening is that the
redistricting is happening outside the formal nation-wide redistricting.
Until Texas, not a single state had redistricted when it felt like it (other
than where the Supreme Court ordered specific districts unconstitutional).
Since Texas, Georgia has done the same and Colorado tried but failed (both
states controlled by the GOP, incidentally). Clearly, the Supreme Court
would not rule a plan designed in 2001 by either party unconstitutional.
What is being challenged is the right of a state legislature to do so
outside the formal redistricting.
And incidentally, it's the fundraising that Tom de Lay, the former GOP House
Leader undertook to fund his redistricting that has resulted in the current
lawsuit that's forced his resignation. I'd add that a memo was leaked last
week from five White House Lawyers arguing that the Texas "extraordinary"
redistricting was unconstitutional.
One other point in respect of US boundaries is that a lot of the mess you
get with district boundaries is actually required by law: states are obliged
to draw majority (or as close as possible) black/hispanic districts under
the Voter Rights Act - which is relatively fine in somewhere like Los
Angeles with lots of districts and where the population tends to cluster
together, but in somewhere like North Carolina, when majority black
communities are dispersed, they end up with cumbersome districts. I use NC
as an example because this was one example where the Supreme Court ordered a
redrawing of unconstitutional districts after the 1991 redistricting on
these grounds.
The VRA actually hurts the Democrats - sure it creates a safe majority black
district but the result is usually that it makes the surrounding three or
four districts safely Republican.
>> - this is going to the Supreme Court and I suspect they might put a stop
>> to it
>
> Hasn't the Supreme Court previously ruled that party based gerrymandering
> is okay?
How long have you got? The short answer's "no - but..." The two relevant
cases are (most recently) Vieth vs Jubilirer in Pennsylvania and an earlier
case that established a precedent on this, Bandemer. In Vieth, the Supreme
Court was unanimous that partisan gerrymandering is a matter for them, and
"excessive" partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. The problem, of
course, is the definition of "excessive". Here the Court split five/four in
ruling that the PA redistricting was not sufficiently excessive to
overturn - the swing vote on this issue was Justice Kennedy.
Essentially, he ruled that the test of excess had not been met in that
case - but he held open the door that he could be persuadable in future if a
more convincing definition of excess could be provided. Now, the Texas case
is actually LESS partisan in outcome than the PA case, so on the one hand
you might think there's little chance of TX being overturned. BUT the
extraordinary nature of this and the other cases might be the tip, and
Kennedy seems keen to have another bash at this issue, so anything could
happen. You can read more about this at
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/002990.html
There are of course wider political consequences here: if the Court rules in
favour of Texas then it may well be taken as carte blanche permission for
parties to redistrict whenever control changes regardless of the ten year
redistricting (which will be damaging to US democracy in my view); but if it
rules against, the two issues (that of the gerrymandering and that of the
fact they did it as soon as they won control) are hard to separate, so the
consequence there is that the Supreme Court becomes involved in every
redistricting exercise in every state at the ten year redistricting as well
as outside it.
>> Of course, if they handed responsibility for redistricting to the Federal
>> Elections Commission, that would be the end of that entirely but the
>> "States' Rights" people would go mad, and as we know, turkeys don't vote
>> for Christmas.
>
> They may not, but perhaps they could be persuaded to vote for stopping
> future early Christmases and so take the power to gerrymander out of
> partisan hands and to an independent commission (aren't there a few states
> that already have this?) before they lose power.
There are (they're usually bipartisan rather than independent) but the
precedents aren't great: two measures that were on the ballot in Ohio and
California to create such bipartisan commissions were comprehensively
rejected; the problem here isn't just the parties: it's the public too that
seem to believe politicians should control redistricting. In Ohio the
measure was rejected despite the Republicans' huge problems in that state;
in California, it was rejected largely because of the Governator's
unpopularity). The California ballot would have hurt Dems, the Ohio one the
Republicans.
Adam
Adam Gray
news:dofd34$n1d$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
> "Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:410difF...@individual.net...
>> Adam Gray wrote:
>>
>>> John Maples is actually piloting a private members' bill through about
>>> electoral equality (ee) at the moment. I agree with a lot of what he
>>> says: things like having one boundary commission for the whole UK,
>>> scrapping the minimum representation guarantees for Wales and Ireland.
>>
>> Oh boy! Would it still allow the Boundary Commission wiggle room when
>> it's next to impossible to produce a satisfactory arrangement on the
>> numbers alone? There was a post on this newsgroup a while ago outlining a
>> sixteen seat Northern Ireland and next to none of the changes would have
>> been popular.
>
> But on existing rules they're over-represented. They don't have their
> statutory minimum of17: they've got 19 seats.
Sorry, I meant to type 18.
Adam
JohnLoony
Adam Gray wrote:
> > But on existing rules they're over-represented. They don't have their
> > statutory minimum of17: they've got 19 seats.
>
> Sorry, I meant to type 18.
If I remember correctly, the recommended number for NI is 17, but that
they are allowed 16 or 18 if the circumstances mean that 17 would be
unreasonable. The intention was that it would normally be 17. But the
rules for redrawing boundaries say that the calculations have to start
with the existing quota, so there is an in-built presumption to retain
18. This rule takes precedence over the original "17 unless otherwise"
rule.
Adam Gray
There were 17 until 1997: it's not a long-term phenomenon (and of course in
the old days, the NI seats were among the most under-represented in
parliament - Ian Paisley's Antrim seat was well over 100,000 ISTR). And
Wales is, I think, at least two over its limit despite having several seats
with barely 50,000 electors.
I've come up with a jolly exciting plan for Wales if it had seats with
electorate levels similar to Englands; from recollection had they been in
play in 2005, Labour would have 25 or 26, Tories 2 (arguably: Clwyd &
Denbigh might be Tory), Lib Dems 2, Plaid Cymru 2 (and minimal electoral
variance) - I can provided details if anyone's interested. Sorts our Brecon
& Radnor once and for all too!
Adam
Tim Roll-Pickering
>> Oh boy! Would it still allow the Boundary Commission wiggle room when
>> it's next to impossible to produce a satisfactory arrangement on the
>> numbers alone? There was a post on this newsgroup a while ago outlining a
>> sixteen seat Northern Ireland and next to none of the changes would have
>> been popular.
> But on existing rules they're over-represented. They don't have their
> statutory minimum of17: they've got 19 seats.
The minimum is actually 16 and the max 18, but with a recommendation of 17
unless this causes excessive problems for the Boundary Commission (i.e. the
1994 initial proposals that would have pitted Joe Hendron/Gerry Adams,
Martin Smyth, Peter Robinson, John Taylor, Eddie McGrady and Seamus Mallon
against each other in successive order as they sought to follow the most
fruitful parts of their seats, "packed" Nationalist voters in such a way
that overall one nationalist seat would be lost and had accusations of
gerrymandering across the land and beyond).
In practical terms this is a one seat difference - and in day to day terms
if anything the province is 3-4 seats *under*represented (assuming 16 seats)
by the Sinners not taking their seats. This is less of an anomally than
some.
>> How about allowing more than two London boroughs to be combined? Some of
>> the anomalies stem from the Boundary Commission's refusal to do this and
>> instead produce loads more undersized seats.
> He's asking for that. I'm less supportive of that (although it's happened
> in this review in the West Midlands I seem to recall - doesn't Dudley,
> which is amalgamated with Sandwell also donate or take a ward to/from
> Wolverhampton?) simply because there are so many variations of borough
> combinations and I don't think these have been as widely applied as they
> could be yet.
Maybe but it's not consistently translated to counties. In the case of
Surrey, we currently have the eleven districts effectively treated as one,
although one seat (Spelthorne) is co-terminous with the district, whilst
Runnymede & Weybridge and Esher & Walton combined match the Runnymede and
Elmbridge districts. The other eight all have overlapping bits of pieces
(and some, such as Mole Valley and Guilford, both contain areas outside the
districts with those names and lack areas from their "own" districts!). It
*might* be possible to get at least a twelth seat out if Guildford and
Waverley were considered on a standalone basis (overall the county has 11.41
quotas on the 2000 figures used in the review). I'm sure in other counties a
boundary review with London style limitations would have to create
As a specific example, how would you justify the no more than 2 boroughs
rule vis a vis Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, given that a counter
proposal failed on these grounds which would have tied the three together in
a five seat combination as opposed to the 2 seat each final recommendations?
> There are of course wider political consequences here: if the Court rules
> in favour of Texas then it may well be taken as carte blanche permission
> for parties to redistrict whenever control changes regardless of the ten
> year redistricting (which will be damaging to US democracy in my view);
The current set-up isn't that great either - hideous carve ups that bear no
relation to natural communities, wierd shaped seats that make slamanders
look preferable and an undermining of the case for single member districts.
> but if it rules against, the two issues (that of the gerrymandering and
> that of the fact they did it as soon as they won control) are hard to
> separate, so the consequence there is that the Supreme Court becomes
> involved in every redistricting exercise in every state at the ten year
> redistricting as well as outside it.
Nice. What was that about America being the land of the free? Now it's
become a lawyerocracy.
>> They may not, but perhaps they could be persuaded to vote for stopping
>> future early Christmases and so take the power to gerrymander out of
>> partisan hands and to an independent commission (aren't there a few
>> states that already have this?) before they lose power.
> There are (they're usually bipartisan rather than independent) but the
> precedents aren't great: two measures that were on the ballot in Ohio and
> California to create such bipartisan commissions were comprehensively
> rejected; the problem here isn't just the parties: it's the public too
> that seem to believe politicians should control redistricting. In Ohio
> the measure was rejected despite the Republicans' huge problems in that
> state; in California, it was rejected largely because of the Governator's
> unpopularity). The California ballot would have hurt Dems, the Ohio one
> the Republicans.
That last sentance gives the game away somewhat - does it reflect the
opposition to the moves? Without knowing the details it looks like it's
turned into a vote on the short-term set-up.
Anyone up for liberating America and restoring democracy there? ;-)
JohnLoony
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
> Adam Gray wrote:
> As a specific example, how would you justify the no more than 2 boroughs
> rule vis a vis Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, given that a counter
> proposal failed on these grounds which would have tied the three together in
> a five seat combination as opposed to the 2 seat each final recommendations?
I would justify it on the grounds that you have just said. It is bad
enough that London boroughs are paired, and a combination of three
would be even worse. I would actually prefer to going back to having
no London boroughs being paired (qv my comments about wider variation
generally). In some cases it would mean one constituency for the whole
borough.
Tim Roll-Pickering
If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the City an
interesting seat!) then what about boroughs and districts outside London?
Even with the "only two" rule, why not apply it elsewhere in the case of
Waverley and Guilford, and thus give Surrey a twelth seat? Why should London
be subject to different rules that can result in some of the most notable
discrepancies in the system?
David Boothroyd
"Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the City an
I rather fear it would return us to the deeply uninteresting City of
London constituency which existed pre-1950.
> .. then what about boroughs and districts outside London?
> Even with the "only two" rule, why not apply it elsewhere in the case of
> Waverley and Guilford, and thus give Surrey a twelth seat? Why should London
> be subject to different rules that can result in some of the most notable
> discrepancies in the system?
London Boroughs are different from other boroughs in the country in
that they are unitary and also that they have much more of a presence
on the ground in terms of their local community. Even if compared to
the Metropolitan Counties, more Londoners would be able to identify
their borough, and there are historical boundaries which divide
areas which are very close (for example the South Kilburn area of
Brent is right next to Maida Hill in Westminster, but there is very
little community between the two).
Tim Roll-Pickering
>> If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the City an
>> interesting seat!) ..
> I rather fear it would return us to the deeply uninteresting City of
> London constituency which existed pre-1950.
Perhaps with a different party though... And how about reviving the practice
of the City's MP sitting on the frontbench for the Budget?
>> .. then what about boroughs and districts outside London?
>> Even with the "only two" rule, why not apply it elsewhere in the case of
>> Waverley and Guilford, and thus give Surrey a twelth seat? Why should
>> London
>> be subject to different rules that can result in some of the most notable
>> discrepancies in the system?
> London Boroughs are different from other boroughs in the country in
> that they are unitary
Berkshire? Wales? Scotland? Northern Ireland?
> and also that they have much more of a presence
> on the ground in terms of their local community. Even if compared to
> the Metropolitan Counties, more Londoners would be able to identify
> their borough, and there are historical boundaries which divide
> areas which are very close
I must remember that the next time I'm walking through the wilderness that
is the Tower Hamlets/Newham border but *not* the constituency boundary
between Poplar and West Ham!
Even still I don't see how this restriction can be justified over and above
the numerical one. The (counter) proposal I referred to would have had no
individual seat in more than two boroughs and only one straddling each
border. This isn't really breaking the ties or disrespecting the boroughs
any more that at the moment - the population of Tower Hamlets are not going
to notice or care if Hackney is attached to Islington as well or not. Your
argument is a case for not tieing together boroughs at all (give or take the
special case of the City), but I don't really see how it says "tieing two
together is okay but tieing three or more isn't".
JNugent
> "Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
>> If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the City an
>> interesting seat!) ..
> I rather fear it would return us to the deeply uninteresting City of
> London constituency which existed pre-1950.
>> .. then what about boroughs and districts outside London?
>> Even with the "only two" rule, why not apply it elsewhere in the case of
>> Waverley and Guilford, and thus give Surrey a twelth seat? Why should
>> London
>> be subject to different rules that can result in some of the most notable
>> discrepancies in the system?
> London Boroughs are different from other boroughs in the country in
> that they are unitary and also that they have much more of a presence
> on the ground in terms of their local community. Even if compared to
> the Metropolitan Counties, more Londoners would be able to identify
> their borough, and there are historical boundaries which divide
> areas which are very close (for example the South Kilburn area of
> Brent is right next to Maida Hill in Westminster, but there is very
> little community between the two).
<sigh>
People who happen to live (or otherwise have a residential address) in a
London borough are no more entitled to a better/bigger say than the lesser
mortals who live elsewhere in the UK.
The same arguments apply to residents of Scotland.
John M Ward
> > "Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
> >> If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the
> >> City an interesting seat!) ..
> > I rather fear it would return us to the deeply uninteresting City of
> > London constituency which existed pre-1950.
> >> .. then what about boroughs and districts outside London?
> >> Even with the "only two" rule, why not apply it elsewhere in the
> >> case of Waverley and Guilford, and thus give Surrey a twelth
> >> seat? Why should London be subject to different rules that can
> >> result in some of the most notable discrepancies in the system?
> > London Boroughs are different from other boroughs in the country in
> > that they are unitary and also that they have much more of a
> > presence on the ground in terms of their local community.
We here in my area (Medway, Kent) are unitary as well, and we certainly
have a *very* strong presence on the ground. I know I have, and I am
not alone here...
> > Even if compared to the Metropolitan Counties, more Londoners would
> > be able to identify their borough, and there are historical
> > boundaries which divide areas which are very close (for example the
> > South Kilburn area of Brent is right next to Maida Hill in
> > Westminster, but there is very little community between the two).
> <sigh>
> People who happen to live (or otherwise have a residential address)
> in a London borough are no more entitled to a better/bigger say than
> the lesser mortals who live elsewhere in the UK.
> The same arguments apply to residents of Scotland.
Agreed on both counts, but it doesn't stop a lot of them believing that
they *do* have such an entitlement.
The bottom line is that every area has its own particular circumstances,
and the only way to deal effectively with those is community-led
governance. That means that outsiders need to be kept out of the
equation wherever possible.
David Boothroyd
> London borough are no more entitled to a better/bigger say than the lesser
> mortals who live elsewhere in the UK.
>
> The same arguments apply to residents of Scotland.
I don't see what setting the boundaries of Parliamentary constituencies
has to do with the people getting a say. The number of people who
comment on boundary changes is tiny. Most people couldn't give a hoot
save that they want an effective MP if they have a problem, and if they
are committed to a party, they probably also want their party to be
able to win the seat.
Adam Gray
> David Boothroyd wrote:
>> and also that they have much more of a presence
>> on the ground in terms of their local community. Even if compared to
>> the Metropolitan Counties, more Londoners would be able to identify
>> their borough, and there are historical boundaries which divide
>> areas which are very close
>
> I must remember that the next time I'm walking through the wilderness that
> is the Tower Hamlets/Newham border but *not* the constituency boundary
> between Poplar and West Ham!
It's about to be, though.
Adam
Adam Gray
"Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote in message
> As a specific example, how would you justify the no more than 2 boroughs
> rule vis a vis Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, given that a counter
> proposal failed on these grounds which would have tied the three together
> in a five seat combination as opposed to the 2 seat each final
> recommendations?
Well easy: I'd twin islington with Camden (3 seats) and Hackney with Tower
Hamlets (3 seats); as a consequence, Brent would need to be twinned with
Harrow (5 seats - more logical than with Camden), and Hillingdon with
Hounslow (5 seats - Hounslow is under-represented but is still stand-alone).
>> There are of course wider political consequences here: if the Court rules
>> in favour of Texas then it may well be taken as carte blanche permission
>> for parties to redistrict whenever control changes regardless of the ten
>> year redistricting (which will be damaging to US democracy in my view);
>
> The current set-up isn't that great either - hideous carve ups that bear
> no relation to natural communities, wierd shaped seats that make
> slamanders look preferable and an undermining of the case for single
> member districts.
No, it isn't, but having everyone redistrict at the same time for an
election to a federal body is surely preferable (or at least, the least
worst option).
>> There are (they're usually bipartisan rather than independent) but the
>> precedents aren't great: two measures that were on the ballot in Ohio and
>> California to create such bipartisan commissions were comprehensively
>> rejected; the problem here isn't just the parties: it's the public too
>> that seem to believe politicians should control redistricting. In Ohio
>> the measure was rejected despite the Republicans' huge problems in that
>> state; in California, it was rejected largely because of the Governator's
>> unpopularity). The California ballot would have hurt Dems, the Ohio one
>> the Republicans.
>
> That last sentance gives the game away somewhat - does it reflect the
> opposition to the moves? Without knowing the details it looks like it's
> turned into a vote on the short-term set-up.
No, I don't think it is - take the Ohio one. The Republicans in Ohio are
currently massively unpopular - in one recent poll the Governor, who's
engulfed in scandal (he recently had an approval rating of 8% - that's 8%
say he's doing a good job!)...the ballot measure was one of several to
remove the power to redistrict from the Secretary of State and was
"independent", but linked to the Democrats - it still didn't come close to
passing.
There's clearly some partisan voting on these measures; but it transcends
it - for example you may have been aware that in Colorado at the last
presidential election there was a ballot measure to split the state's
electoral college vote in terms of who "wins" each district - Colorado was a
knife-edge state: Bush won, but the Dems gained the senate seat; even though
the measure would have helped Democrats the measure lost by a large amount -
clearly Dems didn't back it much more enthusiastically than Republicans.
Adam
JohnLoony
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
> If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the City an
> interesting seat!)
Obviously the City of London is not a borough and would remain paired
with Westminster.
> then what about boroughs and districts outside London?
> Even with the "only two" rule, why not apply it elsewhere in the case of
> Waverley and Guilford, and thus give Surrey a twelth seat? Why should London
> be subject to different rules that can result in some of the most notable
> discrepancies in the system?
Because London is far larger than other counties. The boroughs
themselves should be regarded as the units to be divided, and should
only be paired in exceptional cases. I would also prefer the
metropolitan boroughs in the other 6 metropolitan counties to have
greater weight for the Boundary Commission, thereby avoiding some of
the problems where the large metropolitan counties have not been
subdivided.
JohnLoony
David Boothroyd wrote:
> Most people couldn't give a hoot
> save that they want an effective MP if they have a problem, and if they
> are committed to a party, they probably also want their party to be
> able to win the seat.
Then they should learn to give a hoot, and become more interested in
politics and elections and psephology and dermography and
multi-dimensional pedantitudinalism - like the rest of us normal people.
John M Ward
JohnLoony <john....@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
See, everyone? This is the kind of reason I like having MRLP folk
around in this business! Far more colourful than dull gray...
Colin Rosenstiel
john....@tiscali.co.uk (JohnLoony) wrote:
> Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
> > If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the
> > City an interesting seat!)
>
> Obviously the City of London is not a borough and would remain paired
> with Westminster.
Not obvious at all. In terms of powers the City is in some ways superior
to London Boroughs.
> > then what about boroughs and districts outside London?
> > Even with the "only two" rule, why not apply it elsewhere in the
> > case of Waverley and Guilford, and thus give Surrey a twelth seat?
> > Why should London be subject to different rules that can result in
> > some of the most notable discrepancies in the system?
>
> Because London is far larger than other counties. The boroughs
> themselves should be regarded as the units to be divided, and should
> only be paired in exceptional cases. I would also prefer the
> metropolitan boroughs in the other 6 metropolitan counties to have
> greater weight for the Boundary Commission, thereby avoiding some of
> the problems where the large metropolitan counties have not been
> subdivided.
Some metropolitan councils are smaller than the smallest London borough.
Many are larger.
Richard Gadsden
> So the commission should split reviews into two: council size and
> thereafter ward boundaries: they are distinctly different issues (one
> is about effective, efficient council management and the other relates
> to defining coherent communities) instead of dealing with both a the
> same time, and ending up in the mess we finished with.
I don't agree. What they should do is decide on the coherent communities
(regardless of size) then look at the links between those communities,
then see what council sizes will result in sensible combinations of
communities into wards, and only finally look at which of those council
sizes make sense in council management terms.
My experience is that you get certain "eigenvalues" in terms of the number
of councillors where you can divide the council area up sensibly, and
other numbers that cannot be made to work in community identity terms.
The objective of the review should be to see what the closest eigenvalue
is to the number of councillors that would be ideal in council management
terms.
--
Richard Gadsden
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it" - Attributed to Voltaire
Colin Rosenstiel
rgad...@blueyonder.co.uk (Richard Gadsden) wrote:
I think you are wrongly assuming that communities are discrete and
singular entities.
abbots...@cix.compulink.co.uk
rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
> Some metropolitan councils are smaller than the smallest London
> borough.
I don't think that's true.
Matthew
Colin Rosenstiel
abbots...@cix.compulink.co.uk () wrote:
Hmm. Smallest Met? Calderdale? If so you're right.
Rover
> "Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote in message
>
> > As a specific example, how would you justify the no more than 2 boroughs
> > rule vis a vis Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, given that a counter
> > proposal failed on these grounds which would have tied the three together
> > in a five seat combination as opposed to the 2 seat each final
> > recommendations?
>
> Well easy: I'd twin islington with Camden (3 seats) and Hackney with Tower
> Hamlets (3 seats); as a consequence, Brent would need to be twinned with
> Harrow (5 seats - more logical than with Camden), and Hillingdon with
> Hounslow (5 seats - Hounslow is under-represented but is still stand-alone).
>
> >> There are of course wider political consequences here: if the Court rules
> >> in favour of Texas then it may well be taken as carte blanche permission
> >> for parties to redistrict whenever control changes regardless of the ten
> >> year redistricting (which will be damaging to US democracy in my view);
> >
> > The current set-up isn't that great either - hideous carve ups that bear
> > no relation to natural communities, wierd shaped seats that make
> > slamanders look preferable and an undermining of the case for single
> > member districts.
Adam,
You have a point about how bad the congressional districts are fscked
up here in the USA. About a year or so ago, I moved house a mile from
where I was before. In moving, I moved into another congressional
district!
Rover
JNugent
news:1135712342.4...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Adam Gray wrote:
[ ... ]
> Adam,
It doesn't matter how electoral areas are defined or drawn - it will
*always* be possible to move from one to another by moving house 50 yards,
let alone a mile.
David Boothroyd
"JNugent" <not.t...@isp.com> wrote:
> "Rover" <jos...@sillydog.org> wrote in message
> news:1135712342.4...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> > up here in the USA. About a year or so ago, I moved house a mile from
> > where I was before. In moving, I moved into another congressional
> > district!
>
> It doesn't matter how electoral areas are defined or drawn - it will
> *always* be possible to move from one to another by moving house 50 yards,
> let alone a mile.
In the US, Congressional Districts are in general set by the State
legislature and are quite definitely set for political reasons. There
isn't any requirement to make them natural communities as there is here.
The result is that many are quite deliberately irrational in going into
narrow strips so that two disparate communities can be linked.
You can have a look at the atlas of US Congressional districts:
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/congress.html
JNugent
> "JNugent" <not.t...@isp.com> wrote:
>> "Rover" <jos...@sillydog.org> wrote:
>> > You have a point about how bad the congressional districts are fscked
>> > up here in the USA. About a year or so ago, I moved house a mile from
>> > where I was before. In moving, I moved into another congressional
>> > district!
>> It doesn't matter how electoral areas are defined or drawn - it will
>> *always* be possible to move from one to another by moving house 50
>> yards,
>> let alone a mile.
> In the US, Congressional Districts are in general set by the State
> legislature and are quite definitely set for political reasons. There
> isn't any requirement to make them natural communities as there is here.
> The result is that many are quite deliberately irrational in going into
> narrow strips so that two disparate communities can be linked.
As long as the electoral areas are all "communities of interest" (whether
Republican or Democrat), I have no problem with that.
> You can have a look at the atlas of US Congressional districts:
> http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/congress.html
I am aware of how the term "gerrymander" arose.
But what is the problem with (taken entirely at random):
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/pdf/congdist/NY01_109.pdf ?
JohnLoony
Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
> In article <1135363976.2...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> john....@tiscali.co.uk (JohnLoony) wrote:
>
> > Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
> > > If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the
> > > City an interesting seat!)
> >
> > Obviously the City of London is not a borough and would remain paired
> > with Westminster.
>
> Not obvious at all. In terms of powers the City is in some ways superior
> to London Boroughs.
What I meant is that the C of L is far too small to have a constituency
on its own, and therefore (to remain within the limits of 50,000 to
100,000ish) would have to be combined with somewhere else in order to
form a constituency.
JNugent
> Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
>> john....@tiscali.co.uk (JohnLoony) wrote:
>> > Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
>> > > If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the
>> > > City an interesting seat!)
>> > Obviously the City of London is not a borough and would remain paired
>> > with Westminster.
>> Not obvious at all. In terms of powers the City is in some ways superior
>> to London Boroughs.
> What I meant is that the C of L is far too small to have a constituency
> on its own, and therefore (to remain within the limits of 50,000 to
> 100,000ish) would have to be combined with somewhere else in order to
> form a constituency.
Isn't it so "paired" (with the Central London part of Westminster) already?
Colin Rosenstiel
> > What I meant is that the C of L is far too small to have a
> > constituency on its own, and therefore (to remain within the limits
> > of 50,000 to 100,000ish) would have to be combined with somewhere
> > else in order to form a constituency.
>
> Isn't it so "paired" (with the Central London part of Westminster)
> already?
The difference with the City is that it has always been paired (with Westminster rather than anywhere beneath its dignity like Tower Hamlets) since the City of London ceased to have its own MPs.
Other London Borough pairings are a much more recent invention.
JNugent
> not.t...@isp.com (JNugent) wrote:
>> > What I meant is that the C of L is far too small to have a
>> > constituency on its own, and therefore (to remain within the limits
>> > of 50,000 to 100,000ish) would have to be combined with somewhere
>> > else in order to form a constituency.
>> Isn't it so "paired" (with the Central London part of Westminster)
>> already?
> The difference with the City is that it has always been paired (with
> Westminster rather than anywhere beneath its dignity like Tower Hamlets)
> since the City of London ceased to have its own MPs.
> Other London Borough pairings are a much more recent invention.
If your point is that the City of London should not have been paired with
"real" Westminster and should have been a Parliamentary seat in its own
right, I'm not sure I disagree with you.
Colin Rosenstiel
Not my point at all. Pairing with Westminster was a perfectly sensible solution for somewhere with such a tiny parliamentary electorate. At the time the pairing was established the business vote still existed in local elections anyway and was significant in the City of London.
David Boothroyd
> > legislature and are quite definitely set for political reasons. There
> > isn't any requirement to make them natural communities as there is here.
> > The result is that many are quite deliberately irrational in going into
> > narrow strips so that two disparate communities can be linked.
>
> As long as the electoral areas are all "communities of interest" (whether
> Republican or Democrat), I have no problem with that.
They manifestly are not.
> > You can have a look at the atlas of US Congressional districts:
> > http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/congress.html
>
> I am aware of how the term "gerrymander" arose.
>
> But what is the problem with (taken entirely at random):
> http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/pdf/congdist/NY01_109.pdf ?
Given that no Congressional District can cross state lines then the
far end of Long Island would have to be like that.
Take a look (at random) at the southern part of the currently vacant
50th district of California:
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/ca50_109.gif
Or the way the 6th and 7th districts of Alabama intertwine around
the city of Birmingham.
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/pagecgd109_al2
.gif
The 8th and 11th districts of Georgia are totally confused in the
area south-west of Atlanta.
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/pagecgd109_ga2
.gif
While the 4th district of Massachussetts makes a special detour from
its regularly scheduled area to pick up some Boston suburbs:
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/MA04_109.gif
Colin Rosenstiel
Interesting. I see some states at least confine their creations to complete counties (e.g. Ohio).
Tim Roll-Pickering
> The bottom line is that every area has its own particular circumstances,
> and the only way to deal effectively with those is community-led
> governance. That means that outsiders need to be kept out of the
> equation wherever possible.
If this principle had been applied in earlier centuries then the only ones
entitled to have a say in whether or not Dunwich should continue to have
two, one or any MPs would have been the fish!
Tim Roll-Pickering
>>> and also that they have much more of a presence
>>> on the ground in terms of their local community. Even if compared to
>>> the Metropolitan Counties, more Londoners would be able to identify
>>> their borough, and there are historical boundaries which divide
>>> areas which are very close
>> I must remember that the next time I'm walking through the wilderness
>> that is the Tower Hamlets/Newham border but *not* the constituency
>> boundary between Poplar and West Ham!
> It's about to be, though.
True, but only after the enquiry and the acceptance by the Commission that
the Newham wards that would have been left in the Poplar seat would be a
very small part of the constituency and were naturally tied to neighbouring
wards (and note that, not the entire borough). The relationship between
those wards and, say, Forest Gate is about the same as with Poplar.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> "Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote in message
>> As a specific example, how would you justify the no more than 2 boroughs
>> rule vis a vis Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, given that a counter
>> proposal failed on these grounds which would have tied the three together
>> in a five seat combination as opposed to the 2 seat each final
>> recommendations?
> Well easy: I'd twin islington with Camden (3 seats) and Hackney with Tower
> Hamlets (3 seats); as a consequence, Brent would need to be twinned with
> Harrow (5 seats - more logical than with Camden), and Hillingdon with
> Hounslow (5 seats - Hounslow is under-represented but is still
> stand-alone).
From recollection Camden was considered in a separate part of the review
from Islington et al. I've no idea about the boroughs beyond. Perhaps there
should be a further stage in the enquiry to establish just which areas are
suitable for reviewing together?
>>> There are of course wider political consequences here: if the Court
>>> rules in favour of Texas then it may well be taken as carte blanche
>>> permission for parties to redistrict whenever control changes regardless
>>> of the ten year redistricting (which will be damaging to US democracy in
>>> my view);
>> The current set-up isn't that great either - hideous carve ups that bear
>> no relation to natural communities, wierd shaped seats that make
>> slamanders look preferable and an undermining of the case for single
>> member districts.
> No, it isn't, but having everyone redistrict at the same time for an
> election to a federal body is surely preferable (or at least, the least
> worst option).
Wasn't it the Democrats who pioneered the concept of "to the victor the
spoils"?
If the threat of redistricting every time control changes were to lead to a
better and more balanced approach then maybe it cold work. But frankly it
should be used as a case for an external boundary commission to be imposed
across the US.
>>> There are (they're usually bipartisan rather than independent) but the
>>> precedents aren't great: two measures that were on the ballot in Ohio
>>> and California to create such bipartisan commissions were
>>> comprehensively rejected; the problem here isn't just the parties: it's
>>> the public too that seem to believe politicians should control
>>> redistricting. In Ohio the measure was rejected despite the
>>> Republicans' huge problems in that state; in California, it was rejected
>>> largely because of the Governator's unpopularity). The California
>>> ballot would have hurt Dems, the Ohio one the Republicans.
>> That last sentance gives the game away somewhat - does it reflect the
>> opposition to the moves? Without knowing the details it looks like it's
>> turned into a vote on the short-term set-up.
> No, I don't think it is - take the Ohio one. The Republicans in Ohio are
> currently massively unpopular - in one recent poll the Governor, who's
> engulfed in scandal (he recently had an approval rating of 8% - that's 8%
> say he's doing a good job!)...the ballot measure was one of several to
> remove the power to redistrict from the Secretary of State and was
> "independent", but linked to the Democrats - it still didn't come close to
> passing.
California's looks like an attempt to curtail some of the Governator's
problems but there's a more general problem. How much power does a
politician with a safe seat have against one with a marginal? How likely is
it that a Congressman with a marginal seat will rise to a key position of
influence within the House and beyond? How much influence can a strong state
delegation wield in Washington?
> There's clearly some partisan voting on these measures; but it transcends
> it - for example you may have been aware that in Colorado at the last
> presidential election there was a ballot measure to split the state's
> electoral college vote in terms of who "wins" each district - Colorado was
> a knife-edge state: Bush won, but the Dems gained the senate seat; even
> though the measure would have helped Democrats the measure lost by a large
> amount - clearly Dems didn't back it much more enthusiastically than
> Republicans.
The problem is that overall it reduces Colorado's influence in the electoral
college and a winner-takes-all approach is what both sides would naturally
want in a key swing state. The Democrats would not want to be in a position
where their chances of the White House were crippled because despite
carrying one or two knife-edge states they'd surrendered electoral votes
there to the Republicans. For them this measure would be far more useful in
somewhere like Texas.
In a system where states are competing with one another and all trying to
wield influence at the federal level then it doesn't help individual states
that water down their influence in the federal decision making bodies. Who
in a small state would vote away one of their Senate seats? Why vote away
the usefulness of being able to offer a Presidential candidate a block of
electoral votes in exchange for both candidates being able to take you for
granted?
Adam Gray
"Colin Rosenstiel" <rosen...@cix.co.uk> wrote in message
news:memo.2005122...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk...
> In article <1135363976.2...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> john....@tiscali.co.uk (JohnLoony) wrote:
>
>> Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
>> > If no London boroughs can be combined at all (which will make the
>> > City an interesting seat!)
>>
>> Obviously the City of London is not a borough and would remain paired
>> with Westminster.
>
> Not obvious at all. In terms of powers the City is in some ways superior
> to London Boroughs.
It's also been deliberately paired with boroughs to its east for the London
assembly, to try to give it some responsibility for regeneration (at least
that was the - rather weak, given the limited powers of the assembly -
argument used when the constituencies were unveiled!)
Adam
Adam Gray
"Colin Rosenstiel" <rosen...@cix.co.uk> wrote in message
news:memo.2005122...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk...
> abbots...@cix.compulink.co.uk () wrote:
>
>> In article <memo.2005122...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk>,
>> rosen...@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
>>
>> > Some metropolitan councils are smaller than the smallest London
>> > borough.
>>
>> I don't think that's true.
>
> Hmm. Smallest Met? Calderdale? If so you're right.
Smallest London boroughs are Kingston-upon-Thames and Kensington & Chelsea
which merit 1.5 constituencies. I don't think there are any mets with less
than 2 constituencies are there?
Adam
Adam Gray
news:memo.2005122...@a01-09-5548.rosenstiel.co.uk...
The other point is that the principal role of local authorities isn't to
"represent communities" however much that should be an important role of
their councillors: the principal role of local authorities is to administer
services
effectively; the purpose of councils is to politically manage the
administration of services and the purpose of establishing the size of the
council separate to ward boundaries is to determine what size of council
achieves that most effectively.
Richard's point is easier to appreciate in terms of rural/semi-rural areas
where communities are more distinct; in urban areas forever, while we can of
course identify local communities in loose terms (and make strong arguments
for wards that encapsulate them), but as Colin says they aren't so distinct
and merge into each other.
On Richard's basis, I could create 100 different wards in H&F (there were at
least five distinct communities in the ward I used to represent) - that,
though, wouldn't be desirable, popular or helpful to the effective
political management of a council.
Adam