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Super Thursday - Elections 2021

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birchesgreen

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The Johnson regime has successfully positioned itself as new, not a continuation.

Hartlepool isn't that much of a shock if you look at the last couple of elections, plus it was a by-election caused by the sitting Labour MP resigning in disgrace don't forget.
 
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Typhoon

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The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-voting-system-after-labour-mayoral-victories) reports that the government plans to change electoral law so that future mayoral elections use the "first past the post" system in place of the supplementary vote system currently used.

One outcome being that it makes it easier for a Conservative candidate to win in, say, London. Sadiq Khan won 'comfortably" in London this time round, but the contest would have been much closer under "first past the post".

As the article observes, a fragmented "left" means that many voters voted for other candidates as their first preference vote, with Sadiq Khan then as their second preference. Of course, the article doesn't credit the voters with intelligence to switch their voting patterns in the light of the electoral system used. It also observes that almost 5% of the ballots cast in this year's London mayoral election were rejected, mainly because voters had voted for too many candidates, so it would appear that a significant number of voters weren't able to complete the ballot properly, or chose not to for other reasons. I have previously complained to the Electoral Commission and others about the poor wording on the instructions for the postal vote for the supplementary vote system, to no avail.

For what it's worth, the change to the voting system is also planned for the elections for police and crime commissioners.

It looks as if the Conservative party is using its current large majority in parliament to prop up its future vote by changing the voting systems in its favour while it can.
In which case Labour should oppose and make it a manifesto promise to reverse. It would be useful if at some future time there was a hung parliament. I would be asking Johnson whether he was changing it because he thinks the voters are too stupid to be able to work it out.
Actually it might help if there was an example of a successfully completed ballot paper (or two - one with 1st preference only and one with both) and not just the wording, some people learn easier from pictures).

Are there plans in Scotland and Wales to abolish the 'additional member' scheme and just have simple constituencies (like Westminster)? There are 44 who may join them in the 'Aye' lobby!

I think you may be a bit premature about Anneliese Dodds not being scapegoated (unfairly imo) with Rachel Reeves tipped to replace her. Ashworth inspires less confidence in me than most of them: Hancock should be down and, more importantly, OUT by now, but gets more criticism from Jeremy Hunt, often coded, than from Labour so-called top brass. Lisa Nandy is not responsible for the current situation and her election as leader would have meant the Redwall problem had been addressed, even if it meant little in terms of the end result at Hartlepool. Starmer inviting Mandelson to find the town on the map again was an absolute insult to the population, and not something I can imagine Nandy or Rayner doing in a million years.
Congratulations. You wouldn't like to divulge your lottery numbers.

I don't know what the right role for Dodds is but I don't think Party Chair is it. It needs someone more outgoing and who exudes authority.
 
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Butts

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Yes, particularly gutless. At least Sarwar made an effort.

Being top of their List was it not just a token gesture ?

He's just led Labour to their worst ever result in a Scottish Parliamentary Election which seems to be conveniently being brushed under the carpet.
 

Typhoon

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Being top of their List was it not just a token gesture ?

He's just led Labour to their worst ever result in a Scottish Parliamentary Election which seems to be conveniently being brushed under the carpet.
He had been in post for less than 10 weeks at the time the polls opened. Give the man a chance!
 

XAM2175

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Being top of their List was it not just a token gesture ?
I can't fault any party leader for wanting to have a backup plan. My point is that to me it looks especially weak that Ross couldn't even be bothered to make that token gesture of contesting a constituency when he's leader of the main opposition party.
 

Mojo

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What I do find a bit odd is that if the Mayoral role includes the role of Police and Crime commissioner as well then any sitting MP who wins has to stand down as an MP but if it doesn't include that role then they can also stay as an MP as well. So if Tracy Brabin wins West York's she will have to stand down as an MP but Dan Jarvis Sheffield City region Mayor is still an MP.
Whilst on this topic, why is it that in Greater Manchester & West Yorkshire the mayor includes the PCC role, yet in West Midlands and Sheffield City Region (South Yorkshire) they do not? From what I can see the boundaries of the police force and the mayor electorate are the same. Is it because these two CAs have non constituent members from another force area (although they also don’t have the ability to elect the mayor)?

I note that in other areas they do not have such powers because the boundaries are different (eg. in the case of Liverpool the mayor/CA includes Halton which isnt Merseyside, and Tees Valley includes Darlington which comes under Durham Police / and the reverse situation applies in West of England where the mayor/CA covers a smaller area than the police force).
 

WelshBluebird

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It also observes that almost 5% of the ballots cast in this year's London mayoral election were rejected, mainly because voters had voted for too many candidates, so it would appear that a significant number of voters weren't able to complete the ballot properly, or chose not to for other reasons. I have previously complained to the Electoral Commission and others about the poor wording on the instructions for the postal vote for the supplementary vote system, to no avail.
There's been a lot of talk I've seen online about using that fact to justify a change to the system used, totally ignoring the fact that rejected ballots were less of a problem in pretty much every other vote that used that system last week (all of the other mayoral elections, plus the PCC ones). It just points to an issue with the London ballot specifically, and the photos I've seen back that up, because of the number of candidates the list was spread over two columns - the real fix will just be making the ballot paper longer if needed.
It looks as if the Conservative party is using its current large majority in parliament to prop up its future vote by changing the voting systems in its favour while it can.
"Oh we've just lost 11 of the 13 mayoral elections, lets change the system so we are more likely to win".
On its own that is pretty gross, but added together with the plans about requiring photo ID to vote and the changes to seat boundaries going on, it really feels pretty damn degusting.
 

Butts

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I can't fault any party leader for wanting to have a backup plan. My point is that to me it looks especially weak that Ross couldn't even be bothered to make that token gesture of contesting a constituency when he's leader of the main opposition party.

What about the fact Robertson scuttled off to Edinburgh rather than going back to Moray ?

You are aware The Scottish Conservative vote went up at the election ?
 

jfollows

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"Oh we've just lost 11 of the 13 mayoral elections, lets change the system so we are more likely to win".
On its own that is pretty gross, but added together with the plans about requiring photo ID to vote and the changes to seat boundaries going on, it really feels pretty damn degusting.
Yes, it looks like a concerted effort by the Conservatives to maximise their potential electoral advantage by gaming the system.
I don't personally have a problem with the boundaries change, now that the idea of also reducing the number of constituencies from 650 to 600 has been dropped. A periodic review of boundaries is always a good idea, especially when it's carried out by a reasonably independent body as we have set up as a Boundaries Commission.
However it does look like Conservatives would have gained 15 seats as well as Labour losing 10 seats if the last election were run on something like the new boundaries (https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/bdy2023_ec_auto.html).
 

317 forever

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Hartlepool was a shock because this was once a Labour stronghold, and the more Labour lose the more difficult it will become to mount a challenge at the next GE. This isn't being driven by the right wing press, it is being driven by voters see a Labour party that not only doesn't seem to want to represent them, but looks somewhat down on them.

I'm sure some Labour supporters will blame Brexit (especially in Hartlepool), but as has become the 21st century Labour party's modus operandi they won't see themselves to blame in losing support, it will be every one else's fault. And this is the problem that Labour have to tackle, or I fear the Etonians will be settling for many more years.


That's often how it happens, sadly Labour aren't seeing it that way yet.
Something did already stand out about Hartlepool, even leaving aside the "monkey" that won the Mayor contest. On the whole around 65% of Labour voters voted Remain, but the reason for most Labour Leave areas was non-Labour voters and General Election abstainers voting Leave. However, I had read well before the by-election that, uniquely in Hartlepool, a majority of Labour voters had voted Leave.

I am having a holiday in Newcastle next month and have yet to ride a refurbished Grand Central class 180. However, knowing the politics of Hartlepool I am avoiding the Hartlepool routeing in both directions. :idea:
 

WelshBluebird

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Yes, it looks like a concerted effort by the Conservatives to maximise their potential electoral advantage by gaming the system.
I don't personally have a problem with the boundaries change, now that the idea of also reducing the number of constituencies from 650 to 600 has been dropped. A periodic review of boundaries is always a good idea, especially when it's carried out by a reasonably independent body as we have set up as a Boundaries Commission.
However it does look like Conservatives would have gained 15 seats as well as Labour losing 10 seats if the last election were run on something like the new boundaries (https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/bdy2023_ec_auto.html).
Its more once you add all the bits together where it really gets me.
One their own, they mostly aren't that suspicious. As you say, some things do have to happen like boundaries changes and the like. And lets be honest, the Tories aren't the only party trying to push for a voting system that better suits them (why else do the LD's, Greens etc want PR!). But when you look at them all together, each one will hand an advantage to the Tories, so doing them all at about the same time really does start ringing alarm bells.
 

takno

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Yes, it looks like a concerted effort by the Conservatives to maximise their potential electoral advantage by gaming the system.
I don't personally have a problem with the boundaries change, now that the idea of also reducing the number of constituencies from 650 to 600 has been dropped. A periodic review of boundaries is always a good idea, especially when it's carried out by a reasonably independent body as we have set up as a Boundaries Commission.
However it does look like Conservatives would have gained 15 seats as well as Labour losing 10 seats if the last election were run on something like the new boundaries (https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/bdy2023_ec_auto.html).
I think playing clever games for a few theoretical extra seats isn't too worrying in the UK - within about 5 years the population will have moved, or there will be enough of a demographic change that the majority of these benefits are wiped out anyway. The issue in the US is that they lack anything like the boundaries commission, and as a result over the years some of the boundaries have been allowed to turn into completely absurd shapes.
 

DarloRich

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Hartlepool was a shock because this was once a Labour stronghold, and the more Labour lose the more difficult it will become to mount a challenge at the next GE. This isn't being driven by the right wing press, it is being driven by voters see a Labour party that not only doesn't seem to want to represent them, but looks somewhat down on them.

I'm sure some Labour supporters will blame Brexit (especially in Hartlepool), but as has become the 21st century Labour party's modus operandi they won't see themselves to blame in losing support, it will be every one else's fault. And this is the problem that Labour have to tackle, or I fear the Etonians will be settling for many more years.
It isn't a shock if you have even the briefest look at the figures from the last election and know a little bit about the area. Hartlepooh should have gone in 2019 with places like Bylth, Bishop Auckland,Durham NW, Redcar, Stockton and the rest Losing places like that isn't a shock now. I expected a defeat here and in the Tees Valley Mayoralty contest, perhaps not quite as big a defeat, but a defeat nonetheless. The fair point is how it has been allowed to get that bad.

I am sure Corbyn fans ( perhaps you are one of those) wont ever acknowledge this but appointing a person seen by once core supporters as a crackpot, traitorous, anti British, anti military, anti western friend of every terrorist going wasn't a great step forward!

And YES Brexit is a big part of this.

Whilst on this topic, why is it that in Greater Manchester & West Yorkshire the mayor includes the PCC role, yet in West Midlands and Sheffield City Region (South Yorkshire) they do not? From what I can see the boundaries of the police force and the mayor electorate are the same. Is it because these two CAs have non constituent members from another force area (although they also don’t have the ability to elect the mayor)?

I note that in other areas they do not have such powers because the boundaries are different (eg. in the case of Liverpool the mayor/CA includes Halton which isnt Merseyside, and Tees Valley includes Darlington which comes under Durham Police / and the reverse situation applies in West of England where the mayor/CA covers a smaller area than the police force).


All i can come up with is:

The PCC replaced the police authorities that ran/administered each of the territorial police forces in the UK on the basis that these lacked "accountability". I haven't looked much further but suspect that is why the Tees Valley Mayor doesn't have PCC powers as his area covers Durham, Cleveland and perhaps North Yorks constabulary areas all of which now have their own PCC. I guess it wasn't worth trying to sort out the power for all Mayors as that would have involved changes to the existing police structures in the area.

I was saddened to find out that the Commissioner does NOT have the power to operate the bat signal. What a swizz.

PS i consider myself interested in politics but i have no idea who my PCC is or what powers he or she has.
 
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Merle Haggard

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Nothing to do with politics directly but Northamptonshire became two unitary authorities at the beginning of the financial year.
I thought that this meant that Northampton Borough Council ceased to exist, and this is supported by the fact that, if you type that organisation in, you are redirected to West Northamptonshire Unitary Authority.
But the recent elections included ones for councillors on the Borough Council, and councillors were elected (Labour majority).
Can anyone help with what powers they have?
 

Bantamzen

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It isn't a shock if you have even the briefest look at the figures from the last election and know a little bit about the area. Hartlepooh should have gone in 2019 with places like Bylth, Bishop Auckland,Durham NW, Redcar, Stockton and the rest Losing places like that isn't a shock now. I expected a defeat here and in the Tees Valley Mayoralty contest, perhaps not quite as big a defeat, but a defeat nonetheless. The fair point is how it has been allowed to get that bad.

I am sure Corbyn fans ( perhaps you are one of those) wont ever acknowledge this but appointing a person seen by once core supporters as a crackpot, traitorous, anti British, anti military, anti western friend of every terrorist going wasn't a great step forward!

And YES Brexit is a big part of this.
No I was never a Corbyn fan for a start. I do want to see a viable Labour party challenging the Tories right now, but this is not what they are at the moment, especially with Starmer at the helm. His performance with the landlord in Bath really gave quite an insight into the direction the party is moving in at the moment, and its putting people off right through the spectrum of left wing support.

As for Brexit, Labour had a position on this. If people in Hartlepool and the wider North East were unhappy with remaining in the EU or at least how they perceiving being in the EU, Labour could have made a stronger argument for remaining, but we all remember how the arguments just fell into a cycle of tit-for-tat name calling and clichés. So on this argument Labour still have themselves to blame, and this is part of the hangover.

Only when Labour's leadership, and a subset of it's supporters, come to release that the core of their support is being whittled slowly away will they be able to turn this around. They might be eying up new areas to gain new support, but those same new supporters could be easily swayed back to the other side in the run-up to an election. If Labour keep stumbling along as they have for quite a few years, they could find themselves taking permanent residence of the opposition benches, and finding lots of other parties increasingly taking their places. This won't be a popular opinion on this thread, but Labour's self-importance & arrogance is rapidly becoming it's worse enemy. The party need to take a long, hard inward look at themselves, and if they cannot (or will not) they should exit stage right and let someone step up who will.
 

Mojo

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The PCC replaced the police authorities that ran/administered each of the territorial police forces in the UK on the basis that these lacked "accountability". I haven't looked much further but suspect that is why the Tees Valley Mayor doesn't have PCC powers as his area covers Durham, Cleveland and perhaps North Yorks constabulary areas all of which now have their own PCC. I guess it wasn't worth trying to sort out the power for all Mayors as that would have involved changes to the existing police structures in the area.
I know about that and explained it in my post; but my question is why does SY and WM still have a PCC when the metro mayor area Is the same as the police force area in those two examples.
 

JamesT

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Its more once you add all the bits together where it really gets me.
One their own, they mostly aren't that suspicious. As you say, some things do have to happen like boundaries changes and the like. And lets be honest, the Tories aren't the only party trying to push for a voting system that better suits them (why else do the LD's, Greens etc want PR!). But when you look at them all together, each one will hand an advantage to the Tories, so doing them all at about the same time really does start ringing alarm bells.
The boundary changes really should be put on an automatic scheduled process to avoid this view of them being partisan. The current boundaries date from 2010 and increasingly favour Labour as the city/rural split shifts over time. The '10 seat gain' is really just a correction back to a fairer distribution of seats.
 

DarloRich

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but my question is why does SY and WM still have a PCC when the metro mayor area Is the same as the police force area in those two examples.

Is it though? While Sheffield City Region includes all of the SYP area does the Sheffield City Region also contain areas policed by Derbyshire Constabulary? Thinking Bolsover, Chesterfield etc. Doncaster also has it own elected Mayor who sits (IRC) as a member as the Sheffield City Region combined authority! So much for clear accountability!
 

Mojo

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Is it though? While Sheffield City Region includes all of the SYP area does the Sheffield City Region also contain areas policed by Derbyshire Constabulary? Thinking Bolsover, Chesterfield etc
Those areas don’t have a vote for the mayor - it’s only the four metropolitan areas of the former South Yorkshire county council. It’s the same as West Midlands, the mayor is only elected by those in the ex County Council area. Only thing I can think of is what I said on my earlier post - that because both WM and Sheffield Combined authorities have some non constituent members (even though residents of such areas don’t have a say in the mayor).
 
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takno

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The boundary changes really should be put on an automatic scheduled process to avoid this view of them being partisan. The current boundaries date from 2010 and increasingly favour Labour as the city/rural split shifts over time. The '10 seat gain' is really just a correction back to a fairer distribution of seats.
They historically have been pretty much done on a schedule, and haven't been seen as political. As with so many other things in our current political landscape, this was wrecked by Cameron for short term political gain before he ran away and left everybody else to pick up the pieces.
 

DynamicSpirit

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The boundary changes really should be put on an automatic scheduled process to avoid this view of them being partisan. The current boundaries date from 2010 and increasingly favour Labour as the city/rural split shifts over time. The '10 seat gain' is really just a correction back to a fairer distribution of seats.

The partisan thing isn't so much because of timing as because of the rules imposed on the boundaries commission by the then Cameron Government at the last review (which was never implemented in the end).

Requiring equal populations per constituency sounds great in principle, but the problem then becomes, how do you measure the population. You could use census data (probably the most accurate) or the electoral rolls, or perhaps some combination. If you only use electoral rolls then you hit the problem that poorer and ethnic minority voters are less likely to be registered. So you end up not counting those people, which means areas with high levels of poverty or large numbers of ethnic minority voters get fewer constituencies than they should do. That will tend to benefit the Tories. Surprise surprise, the rules they stipulated for the last boundary review required population to be taken only from the electoral register. (I'm not quite sure what was done before that). There's a related issue of, should you count non-citizens with residency rights, who are not allowed to vote, but are still represented by their MPs. Obviously, if you only use the electoral register to assess population levels, then you won't count those people, which again means that constituencies with high numbers of immigrants will tend to be larger. Again that's more likely to benefit the Tories.

To add to that - in the particular area I live in, there it was being alleged that, leading up to the date for which the boundaries commission was required to use the population levels, Tory-run borough council was deliberately not doing anything to encourage voter registration in the poorer (and more Labour) parts of the borough. I appreciate what I'm saying here is allegations rather than proof, but with this kind of thing, it's not hard to see how even with changes on a regular schedule, they can very easily be seen to be partisan. My own belief, putting everything together, is that the Tories were trying to manipulate the rules as much as they could get away to give themselves an advantage and exclude Labour voters. And I'm sure the current voter ID stuff (as well as the proposals to ditch 2nd preferences for mayoral elections) is part of this pattern.
 
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HSTEd

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Essentially whilst the Electoral Commission was not interfered with directly, the Conservative Party ran numerous possible boundary realignments beforehand and worked out what set of input criteria was likely to give it a good result.
 

JamesT

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Essentially whilst the Electoral Commission was not interfered with directly, the Conservative Party ran numerous possible boundary realignments beforehand and worked out what set of input criteria was likely to give it a good result.

And the LibDems didn’t do any modelling of their own before agreeing to it?
 

HSTEd

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And the LibDems didn’t do any modelling of their own before agreeing to it?
Give how naive the Lib Dems appear to have been the rest of the time, I wouldn't be surprised
 

DynamicSpirit

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And the LibDems didn’t do any modelling of their own before agreeing to it?

The LibDems initially agreed to it early in the coalition days as part of a package of measures including the AV referendum and House of Lords reform, so I would assume it was probably a compromise based on accepting some things the Tories wanted in return for some things the LibDems wanted. I'm guessing another factor may be that, being a smaller party with fewer resources than the Tories to do research etc., it's possible the LibDems might not have fully appreciated at the time the implications of what they were agreeing to - but I am guessing there. I certainly wouldn't expect the LibDems to have the resources to do detailed modelling).

(There was also some history afterwards: The Tories didn't deliver on House of Lords reform and because of that the LibDems in 2013 subsequently voted against implementing the changes, killing them off for the time being. IIRC the Tories then tried to resurrect it after 2015 once they got their majority in the Commons, but then lost their majority again at the 2017 election before the changes could be brought into law. Obviously now the Tories have their majority back, you can expect to another review on the same lines as the aborted 2011 one).
 

JamesT

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The LibDems initially agreed to it early in the coalition days as part of a package of measures including the AV referendum and House of Lords reform, so I would guess it was a compromise based on accepting some things the Tories wanted in return for some things the LibDems wanted. I'm guessing another factor may be that, being a smaller party with fewer resources than the Tories to do research etc., it's possible the LibDems might not have fully appreciated at the time what they were agreeing to).
In 2010, both parties had reducing the size of parliament in their manifestos. Indeed, the LibDems wanted to go further down to 500 MPs.

(There was also some history afterwards: The Tories didn't deliver on House of Lords reform and because of that the LibDems in 2013 subsequently voted against implementing the changes, killing them off for the time being. IIRC the Tories then tried to resurrect it after 2015 once they got their majority in the Commons, but then lost their majority again at the 2017 election before the changes could be brought into law. Obviously now the Tories have their majority back, you can expect to another review on the same lines as the aborted 2011 one).

It’s already underway. Act passed last year to hold another review with 650 seats but otherwise the same rules as 2011. Commissions to report by July 2023. One important change appears to be that the changes will be automatically implemented rather than having to go through parliament again.
 

brad465

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The LibDems initially agreed to it early in the coalition days as part of a package of measures including the AV referendum and House of Lords reform, so I would assume it was probably a compromise based on accepting some things the Tories wanted in return for some things the LibDems wanted. I'm guessing another factor may be that, being a smaller party with fewer resources than the Tories to do research etc., it's possible the LibDems might not have fully appreciated at the time the implications of what they were agreeing to - but I am guessing there. I certainly wouldn't expect the LibDems to have the resources to do detailed modelling).

(There was also some history afterwards: The Tories didn't deliver on House of Lords reform and because of that the LibDems in 2013 subsequently voted against implementing the changes, killing them off for the time being. IIRC the Tories then tried to resurrect it after 2015 once they got their majority in the Commons, but then lost their majority again at the 2017 election before the changes could be brought into law. Obviously now the Tories have their majority back, you can expect to another review on the same lines as the aborted 2011 one).
The Lib Dems didn't actually want AV, they wanted a proper PR voting system (AV is another form of FPTP), but ended up selling out for AV, which wasn't just not PR, it was very hard to explain to the point that status quo could easily win. AV of course is more or less the system Mayors and PCCs were elected under last week.
 

DynamicSpirit

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It’s already underway. Act passed last year to hold another review with 650 seats but otherwise the same rules as 2011. Commissions to report by July 2023. One important change appears to be that the changes will be automatically implemented rather than having to go through parliament again.

Ah OK. In that case, I guess we can expect another election soon after July 2023 ;)


**** change of topic which really merits a different post, but the system auto-merges anyway :( ****


Back to the topic of these elections, the Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner election is going to be re-run after the winning Tory candidate turned out to be ineligible because of a 30-year-old drink-driving conviction. link.

I do find that a bit surprising - debarring someone because of a single conviction 30 years ago seems a bit extreme if the person has never been convicted of anything else since then. Whatever happened to the idea of people paying their penalty and then getting rehabilitated?
 
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I know about that and explained it in my post; but my question is why does SY and WM still have a PCC when the metro mayor area Is the same as the police force area in those two examples.

The WM PCC stays, as a result of a proposal by the Re-Elected Mayor Andy Street to merge it into the Mayor’s functions, being rejected by Council Leaders in his first term and with the Council balance being 4 Labour and 3 Conservative across the region, that I suspect will remain the same.
 
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