Boundary changes: the first map of the UK's new constituencies
How would the UK have looked if the 2010 election had been fought with the new constituencies? Would your MP still have a seat? Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and now Wales have published their recommendations - and we've collated them to show the country as a whole. A crude analysis of the 2010 results creates the following map. What do you think?
• Explore the data for yourself
• Read the story
• Download the KML files (please credit Guardian Datastore): WALES | NI | SCOT | ENGLAND
Created using Google Fusion Tables
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LEFT: the 2010 results with the new boundaries • RIGHT: the 2010 results, existing boundaries
Based on a crude analysis of the composition of the new constituencies, using the 2010 election results in old ones. Assumes uniform vote across old constituencies
Comments
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11 January 2012 11:12AM
Dear God, those maps are depressing...
11 January 2012 11:17AM
Damn those people for making a democratic choice eh? Rather puts paid to the "liberal"/"Socialist" consensus that is trotted out time and time again BTL......
11 January 2012 11:22AM
How democratic a choice is it really, though?
I live in a safe Labour seat and am lucky enough to be one of those few people with a genuinely good MP. Otherwise, I would never vote Labour and my vote would be entirely meaningless.
11 January 2012 11:24AM
Democracy in action. What would they have been under AV?! ;-)
11 January 2012 11:24AM
Somebody stole Chesterfield's MP in the right-hand map.
11 January 2012 11:32AM
Probably worth someone adjusting the colours on northern Ireland before you give the Prods a hear attack. Sinn Fein landslide!
11 January 2012 11:54AM
Good point! We're having trouble adjusting the colours for Northern ireland
11 January 2012 12:13PM
What a poxy system FPTP is. All this map does is remind me that my vote is going to count for bugger all, just like in 2010.
11 January 2012 12:16PM
Looks like the usual gerrymandering, so no surprises there. Interesting that the map suggests a pretty clear political/cultural divide roughly along the Welsh border on the one hand, and roughly along a line from Barrow to Middlesborough on the other. Makes you wonder if Scottish independence might be followed by similar moves from Wales, and perhaps Cumrbia and the Northeast, especially as the alternative would appear to be an English Tory boot in the face forever...
11 January 2012 12:18PM
We were merged into a safe Tory seat the last time around and the new boundaries seem to make it even safer.
It's almost like they've done this to stack the cards in their favour.
11 January 2012 12:24PM
Even less proportional. More Labour seats with a lower percentage of the vote.
11 January 2012 12:26PM
Obviously it does not represent population densities proportionately but overall the maps look remarkably similar. The differentiation must be in the detail. As ever, this sort of mapping dives the break-up-Britain argument its usual cogency.
11 January 2012 12:31PM
Democracy - Your chance every 4 or 5 years, on a given Thursday (or no chance if you have a full time job and have no time) to cast a completely pointless vote.
and we wonder why , election on election less and less people vote. Parties generally vote themselves out by default as opposed to the country deciding.
We have 2 main parties apparently at either end of the scale fighting over ownership of the same policies. Therefore there is now little to choose other than the colour of the prime minister's tie.
11 January 2012 12:34PM
The caption says that the map
Gerrymandering may also be about making the most of the fact that constituencies are often not at all uniform. Pockets of high rates of Tory voting in predominantly Labour areas [for example] are drowned out in FPTP; moving this pocket into a more marginal seat may help swing the seat. It would be interesting to know whether the proposed boundary changes will favour one party more in this way.
Either way, though, I'm already feeling that Tory size 12 on my face...
11 January 2012 12:34PM
Read the small print: "Assumes uniform vote across old constituencies".
I suspect the new map has very much been drawn with a consideration that it isn't.
11 January 2012 12:48PM
Democracy: rule by the floating voter. Who is, let's face it, easily led, venal, vindictive, short-sighted, self-centred, timid and a slave to the zeitgeist. Is this really, as we are constantly asked to believe, the best of all possible systems of government?
Give me a benevolent dictator any day.
11 January 2012 1:00PM
You say you have no chance to vote if you have a f/t job or no time, but polling stations are open from 7a.m. to 10p.m. If you work that much, you have a problem, and if you can't find 10 minutes in your day to put a x on a piece of paper, again there are problems. But if Thursdays are a nightmare, there's always the postal vote, so no more crappy excuses.
11 January 2012 1:07PM
Am I reading this right?
It looks more like left is existing boundaries (it has Blaby and a large area Hallam for Nick Clegg) which would make right the new boundaries.
11 January 2012 1:10PM
With the total collaspe of Lib Dem vote Monmouthshire now looks like a more winable seat for Labour. Three times winner Huw Edwards please come back all is forgiven.
11 January 2012 1:29PM
And the muppets still don't understand why so many people no longer bother to vote, they have no faith in the system especially as they, the muppets keep trying to gerrymander constituencies to their own benefit.
The whole sick edifice needs a complete overhaul and brought into the 21st century.
11 January 2012 1:44PM
I set off at 6.30 to catch the train. I'm self employed, so taking the morning off is impossible without losing money. I'm not back by 7-8 pm. I'm working and grateful for it. The last 2 postal votes in my area were investigated for postal voating fraud.
The point I was making is voting is pointless when there is little to distinguish between parties.
11 January 2012 2:19PM
Altering constituency boundaries for party political advantage - just makes me disconsolately pine for proportional representation all the more.
11 January 2012 2:22PM
Co Durham should have been allowed to join Scotland years ago after successive Tory administrations have all but bleed the region dry. Remote government in Westminster is just as distasteful as undemocratic government from Brussels just 240 miles further away, Although the EU and is regulations have done more to temper the excesses of the there's no other way Tories than the Nu Labour administration.
We have had the big stick treatment for over 30 years now if we breakaway we might get some of the carrot.
11 January 2012 2:49PM
Move to Scotland, Paul. Or start your own secessionist movement :)
11 January 2012 2:50PM
poor old Shetland.
11 January 2012 2:50PM
SUCKERS! all those who voted against electoral reform... you @$$ holes are now going to get what you perhaps should deserve but what none of us truly do deserve.
11 January 2012 2:52PM
Nice pair of maps, though on the right map, parts of North Bristol have been disenfranchised.
12 January 2012 5:10AM
Poor lone Scottish Conservative Westminster MP David Mundell.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde,
"To have one Scottish Conservative MP may be regarded as a misfortune; to have none looks like carelessness."
They could always sell-off the party conference centre, http://gb.fotolibra.com/images/previews/25766-telephone-box-scotland.jpeg