Scottish IndyRef2 - Autumn 2020

JayCee

What happened to that agreement you initially posted?



Parliament also doesn't work at the country level either. It's purely constituencies.
However constituencies are grouped into regions for constituency size and boundary administrative purposes (England) or by country (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) for the same reason.
If you want to micro dissect we can as long as that includes regions of England...

AFAIK Scotland doesn't have regional grouping of constituencies for the UK Parliament (it does for Holyrood due to the regional list PR system) so it would have to be at the constituency level and you really don't want to go there given some of the constituency figures for England.

Hence it is simpler to compare a regional grouping of constituences (which is what the boundary commissions do) whether that be a country with a smallish electorate like Scotland, or a regional area like the West Midlands which has a broadly similar electorate: 4 million vs 3.9 million.

Another fact for you. The 5.9 million electorate of the North East plus the West Midlands regions have one MP per 67K vs the one per 67.8K for the Scotland excluding the two geographical anomaly ones***. Thus they are very slightly over represented compared to Scotland and very much over represented compared to some other regions in England.

***Why are two excluded? One is 130 miles from tip to tip and the other is 167 miles.
Total distance tip to tip between the two is around 370 miles. Why is that relevent? Because it would be impracticable for a single MP to adequately serve the electorate of these two very geographically seperate areas.

There are a small number of exceptions to the numerical limit on electorate which are specified in the legislation:
the four island constituencies are permitted to have a smaller electorate than the usual limit;a constituency with an area of more than 12,000 square kilometres (4,600 sq mi) may have a smaller electorate than the usual limit

Sloppy Bob

I was talking about different things in case you hadn't noticed.
Constituencies are grouped into areas for administrative purposes. Either by country or for England by region. Add a 'However' in front of my "The constituencies are grouped......MPs" paragraph if that makes it any clearer to you.
Large portions of England are also over represented for their electorate size. That is a simple fact which the boundary changes would seek to resolve. The Boundary Commission considers them to be over represented so if you don't agree, take it up with them....

To bring the electorate to MP ratio into line between England and Scotland (and Wales and Northern Ireland) England would loose 33 MPS. These would be coming mostly from the 14.7 million electorate regions I mentioned previously (21 of the 33 seats to be removed or 63.6% of the MPs to be removed from England).

One man's 'twiisting and turning' is another looking at the actual raw data. And the data doesn't say what you think it does. Looking at the data at the constituency level has some interesting results which I was very surprised to see.
Only by comparing a 39 million electorate size to a 3.9 million one.
Such a large sample size for one skews the average. Hence why comparable sample sizes (the regions which have a more similar number of electorate) is more accurate. Or by looking at the data at the constituency level for an equivalent electorate sample size.

Doing so (using the 2017 electorate figures) shows the smallest constituencies in England  with an equivalent electorate size to Scotland (E: 3,930,451 vs S: 3,950,643) have 64 MPs i.e. they get 5 more MPs than Scotland for a smaller electorate size. Scotland is actually under represented compared to those constituencies...

Or, at a regional level the West Midlands: electorate 4 million, 59 MPS vs Scotland: electorate  slightly less than 4 million, 59 MPs. Both are proposed to loose six MPs but at the moment have the same. If Scotland is over represented, so too is the West Midlands.

And Wales is over represented compared to both England and Scotland plus to a much larger amount too. Never hear you harping on about that.

Rasczak

I was agreeing with your comments on Wales

richp007

Figures copied from elsewhere.

The Scottish government produced GERS came out today, the findings for the 2018-19 fiscal year are:
- Budget deficit of 7% (UK's is 1.1%)
- Budget deficit excluding Capital Investment of 4.4% (UK's is a 0.8% surplus)
- Revenue of £62.708Bn, or 8% of total UK revenue.
- Amounts to £11.5k per person. £11.8k is the UK wide figure.
- Spending of £75.338Bn, or 9.3% of total UK spending.
- Amounts to £13.85k per person. £12.2k is the UK wide figure.
All above figures are taken from those that include North Sea Oil for Scotland and which exclude it for the UK.

I wonder if any supporters of independence will comment on what spending they'd cut or taxes they'd increase to deal with the deficit?

JayCee

They’d stay in the EU and let them make up the difference

JayCee

All I can say is he's made it clear he thinks nothing of Scotland or the Scots.
He'll hasten the breakup of the union and I'm okay with that.

richp007

I agree with your last part, but I for one would be sad if it happened. Brexit was never about breaking things up, but here we are edging ever closer to it.

Might be a while too but I can't see the Welsh not following suit at some point. There's already movement for it beginning there apparently.

Goooner

If there are doubts over Scotland being able to fund itself independently, how the hell would Wales manage it?

richp007

I have no idea. It's only very small rumblings at the moment, but it is growing slowly.

Rasczak

I'm more than ok with it.

Fingers firmly crossed.

Don't quite know how they'll manage it given the state of the Scottish government produced GERS figures.

And as for Wales. Utterly ridiculous that anyone thinks they could afford independence. Only a couple of years ago the deficit was 25% of their GDP. Not sure what it is now, but it's certain to still be very substantial.