Let’s just start the month off with a very good laugh at Greg Hands
https://x.com/greghands/status/1697292565987332294?s=46&t=_DgZ2F-XDEissjd_g6iXaw
It’s all been going swimmingly since 2019 and there’s plenty to build on
I’ve blocked Greg Hands and I can’t remember why? (Beyond him being a dickhead)
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We spies oh yeah we Greg Hands
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Greg ‘doesn’t know what to do with his’ Hands
You need hands to show
the world you’re happy
and you need hands
when you have
to stop the boats
Same old Tories, always cheating
Actually this is pretty shocking, had never realised the UK splits up constituencies differently to most other places, imagine if the Tories hadn’t formed a government in 2010 or 2017, or hadn’t won outright in 2015…
Raises an interesting question for me. Which is fairer, determining constituencies on overall population or on just adult population sizes?
Or maybe even households
September is upon us. Politics still full of nobs.
Overall population obviously.
An MP has to represent everyone that lives in his or her constituency, not just those that can (or do) vote.
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Does it affect the fairness if the ratio of voters to non voters is not consistent across all constituencies?
Or rather, the ratio of people who can vote to those who can’t
Irrelevant I think.
Urban constituencies traditionally have lower numbers of electors (which always annoys Tories because those constituencies tend to vote Labour) but they also have huge numbers of non-registered voters who still need to be represented.
I’m assuming the largest group of people who can’t vote are children. I don’t know what the demographic variation for this would be, but there’s definitely going to be places where your vote packs more punch at a national level because of this. Isn’t there?
The group with the most variation is probably people who are transient (short term letters, homeless people, seasonal labourers etc) or not on the electoral register for other reasons.
But there’ll still be variation yes? I’m not understanding why that isn’t relevant to the fairness.
Less fair to voters, more fair to those unable to vote.
There’s no perfect system, they’re all compromised in some way.
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As it happens, the most recent episode of Podlitical was about constituency boundaries.
Why and how are constituency boundaries drawn, and why do they change? Join Phil Sim for a deep dive into the review of Westminster and Holyrood boundaries with Professor Ailsa Henderson, Chair of Boundaries Scotland, and Allan Faulds of Ballot Box Scotland. They discuss the detail and feedback that goes into making decisions, the misconceptions around boundary changes, how the changes work, and how some rules can cause quirky border oddities and long constituency names. Phil and Allan also discuss the political impact of the changes, and how it may affect the next election.
Professor Ailsa Henderson was a very clear and informative about loads of aspects. Scotland-centric, but made a lot of things clear about the differences and comparisons with UK constituency boundaries.
Top top geeking.
TW: Suicide, self harm.
Having recently had to try and claim social welfare due to a mental-health crisis, this hit pretty hard. You’re absolutely made to feel like a criminal throughout the whole process. Remember the ‘meeting’ I had with one of the DWP workers when I started the process and was more or less non-verbal feeling more like a police interview and really traumatic.
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https://twitter.com/channel4news/status/1698683073091764603?s=46&t=ige7vl3mzsTVQTePIW5N3Q
Everyone loves a good swear but this bit is hilarious (should have included the line before)
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“A school can collapse for many reasons”
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