please empty your brain below
I was born and breed in plumstead which cones under Greenwich borough, I moved from there to give my kids a better life 30 years ago if I was happy living under Greenwich borough I wouldn't have moved.
Woolwich gas gone down hill big time, I do not want to be classed as being in woolwich and the value of my house will go down.
Everyone who comes within this red line should have been notified by letter not kept in the dark, everyone talks about human rights where are the residents of this boroughs human rights to not have been told about this and being given the chance to voice their views."
Send them back, that's what I say. Build a wall!
If I was a Tory MP in an area that voted to Remain, or a Labour MP in an area that voted to Leave, I would be very worried. And if I was a Lib Dem candidate, I'd be banging the drum very loud about being the only party that would guarantee we stay in the EU.
Hey, how about a new name for Bow and Canning Town.....Bowcant??
It looks like the Boundary Commission chose Canning Town because it had a slightly higher population in 2015. If Stratford hasn't already overtaken it, it will certainly have done so by 2020.
It seems bizarre to ignore the site of the Olympics.
As things stand we'll have a Tory state for a few years yet, irrespective of what you do with the boundaries.
I have lived in the area all my life and am happy saying I live in Bexleyheath Kent and feel no connection with Woolwich which is South East London and wish this to remain so.
I do not understand how this will effect things like school catchment areas. If we were no longer part of Bexleyheath does that mean our residents' children could no longer sit for 11+ exams? Also would our rates increase as I understand London rates are considerably more than Bexley.
Under the proposed changes to boundaries the village will no longer share an MP; the village will be in the constituency of another town, of a similar size, thirty miles away, in another county. The new boundary runs along the foot of the village, and it's clear what's happened is they've just been sliding parishes across from one to another until they hit 72,000, and my village is the one they stopped at.
If the government actually wanted to make sure everyone had equal representation in the Commons they'd be looking at some form of proportional representation (and no, AV wasn't proportional because it still used the same one-member constituencies, all it would have done is change how the winner of votes was calculated).
Your post today has reminded me to read the Commission website to see what bleating has been taking place over a ward due to be transferred from Newbury to Wokingham. Democracy does require roughly equal size constituencies for fairness and there will be the odd apparent geographical mismatch but the alternative is worse. Remember if the USA election had truly been one man = one vote and not the Electoral College system, then Clinton would be President.
There has to be an Act of Parliament before these changes can take effect, and the Government is going to have to find ways to keep happy backbench Conservative MPs who might stand to lose their seat. It could be interesting.
I do think it would be poor deal for the Chalvey residents.
How on earth will "local" issues be reflected when it comes to voting for our MP? They're not going to care for my small chunk of "not their borough", are they, especially as the neighbouring borough has a major sports venue and more social problems than mine!
I can understand people's gripes in this respect. It does feel like we're being physically moved into another borough, but won't necessarily get represented - "oh they're in XX borough - their council can deal with that!"
Electoral boundary changes are just a fact of life, it's the manipulation of them (gerrymandering by the ruling political party) that would be a cause for concern.
The Boundary Commission’s privacy policy says that “names and postal addresses will not be redacted from any representation (although consideration would be given to redaction in wholly exceptional cases: see ‘special considerations’, below)”.
The part on ‘special considerations’ says:
“Respondents to our consultations who wish to remain anonymous should make such a request as part of their representation, or in writing a reasonable time after their representations. The Commission will take a judgement as to whether to grant the request, but given nature of the public consultation we conduct, it is likely that we will require strong justification to accept any requests for anonymity.”
Of course, there's nothing stopping me using another neighbours name and address... :/
As you state the Boundary Commission for England have to operate within a totally rigid 5% threshold when drawing up parliamentary constituencies (by way of comparison, the Local Government Boundary Commission for England who redraw local government boundaries have a much more generous 10% threshold) and this means a lot of geographical compromises have to be made. This was not always the case, prior to the 2010 election, the BCE had the power to decide when it conducted a review and the number of MPs it recommended.
This power meant that it could be considered truly independent of government. After the 2010 election, legislation was passed by the coalition government dictating how often reviews took place and giving the BCE a number of MPs to work to. THis means the BCE has to some degree become a political football. Whatever party is in government can dictate to the BCE the number of MPs it need to draw up constituencies for. That means parties can propose changes solely to benefit themselves and this is not right.
This is however the sytsem we are now stuck with so expect to see in future all parties trying to bend the will of the BCE to suit their own ends.
https://bwlabour.wordpress.com/about-us/our-representatives/david-gardner/
Problem solved and real democracy achieved.
No more governments inflicted on us with only 37% of those that bothered to vote.
It will never happen in my lifetime of course, there has always been a conspiracy between the two main parties to perpetuate the current first past the post system. We've only had one democratic government since the second world war which was the coalition between 2010 and 2015.
This Boundary Commission exercise reveals the sham that MPs are able to identify with their constituents. In the constituency where I have lived for 22 years, we will have our 4th. boundary shake up! (i.e. Blackpool North, then Blackpool North and Fleetwood, then Blackpool North and Cleveleys and now again Blackpool North and Fleetwood).
After all, people can still vote in secret (at least theoretically, their electoral roll number is craftily written on the reverse of the ballot paper), so why shouldn't people's comments command a similar degree of respect?
The result will be that far fewer comments will be submitted. But perhaps that is the intention?
"I have lived in the area all my life and am happy saying I live in Bexleyheath Kent and feel no connection with Woolwich which is South East London and wish this to remain so."
Err - Bexleyheath is NOT in Kent and hasn't been since 1965. It is part of London and is in the London Borough of Bexley.
dg writes: If I had a pound for every time someone's pointed this out over the last fifteen years...
I would have said that was a small cut rather than a "slash" but hey, I guess shoddy journalism has to over-exaggerate everything.
>>I would have said that was a small cut rather than a "slash" but hey, I guess shoddy journalism has to over-exaggerate everything.
It's from the same school of journalism as "hike" for every rise (even if it's only 0.5%!)
...you'd apparently have a surprising number of forged coins (see separate story).
We do occasionally get electioneering stuff for parliamentary candidates that mention the performance of the local council in glowing terms, or not, which seem to forget that at our end of the constituency we often have a council of a different persuasion.
But I don't think anyone except the odd lazy journalist believes we share anything with tat lot across the park other than an MP.
A bit off topic, but here goes!
As a Presiding Officer at a Polling Station in Southend, I can categorically say that we are not allowed to write anything on the Ballot Papers.
We use a Corresponding Number List where the Elector's Number is noted against the Ballot Paper Number.
I am assured that these are only looked at if there is any dispute about the result that goes to court and that they are destroyed a specified period after the election.
And so while I'm happy to have a non-Tory MP, I suspect that a significant proportion of my neighbours are not.
The upcoming boundary changes move us into a constituency which is much more similar in demographic to our area. It has had a Tory MP in the past, and with this change I am sure it will again.
But is this better or worse for democracy? If the poorer and richer areas have the same MP, does this mean that the MP can't really represent either effectively? Is it silly to put the "genteel" Bexley with Woolwich, because the constituency will be split, and the MP will just support the side they identify with most, even if these are both Labour areas? I can't see that having the same MP increases any community aspect, but it does affect how well you are represented. I certainly don't feel any attachment to the main area of my constituency, and it's clear that our MP feels the same back.
Does it make more sense to group people along demographic lines than geographic ones? Or both together? Should we maybe have a "London based, 30s, Male, Software Developer, with a Degree" constituency?
Of course, the real way of solving this is to get rid of party politics, and have candidates that compete on their own local manifestos rather than just relying on the national leaders to run a presidential campaign and riding along on their shirt tails. But I suspect that won't be happening any time soon!
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