Federal Britain
- Which is which?
A reminder.
I have split Britain, hypothetically, in to twelve states - Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, East, South-East, South-West, North-East, North-West London, East Midlands, West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside,
I have taken the general election results for the last fifty years, and assumed the same votes and constituencies had made up a local federal government.
Finally, I have assumed that the Prime Minister in a UK central government was from the party which won the greatest number of "states".
The following things are the initial points of interest...
- Whichever party Northen Ireland voted for would never have got in.
- There's a clear North/South divide.
- Seven States never change control in fifty years - East, South-East and South-West are staunchly Conservative, while Scotland, Wales, North-East and Yorkshire and Humberside are consistent Labour states.
- Whichever party won London would have won the UK.
- The Prime Minister would have differed from the current system on two occasions. In 1970 Harold Wilson would have been re-elected, and in 2010 Gordon Brown would have been re-elected.
There's more data for me to look at, but it's an interesting exercise.
31 May, 2010
Which year's been best for Who?
- Auton, Cat Nun, Jadoon, Matron, Amy
Doctor Who. Which series is best? There's only one way to find out - rank them, episode by episode.
Rose
Introduction to the brave new world. Had a lot to do. It introduced us to rubber Mickey, won the day with Anti-Plastic and had a great speech or two about the spinning of the world.
New Earth
As the first real full story for David Tennant's Doctor, this had some running to do to catch up. Fortunately, bringing back Cassandra and the Face of Boe gave a confident familiarity. The hospital didn't have a little shop, but the leads were both strong. The resolution was pretty glib - mixing together all the cures in the world making something that can cure anything... but that's kind of the way of these things.
Smith and Jones
The first new companion since the series began, coming in cold. Freema Agyeman's Martha comes across as clever, sensible and grounded. The hospital does have a little shop, and the villain is a little old lady with a straw.
Partners in Crime
I'm waving at fat. Enough said. And the sign-language section.
The Eleventh Hour
Some big shoes to fill - for the first time since 2005, we were seeing a new Doctor and a new companion in the same story. Some good parts - not least the whole post-regeneration eating session. Good start to a season, and full of promise of what is to come...
Overview
Generally speaking, five good strong stories. Hard to rank them, really, but here goes.
- The Eleventh Hour
- Partners in Crime
- New Earth
- Smith and Jones
- Rose
The changing face of Scotland
- All of Scotland used to look like this.
I've done some stats.
I've done quite a lot of stats, actually, looking at the following question:
"If the UK was a federal system, what might it look like?"
I'm doing this on the basis of splitting up England, partly because I can, and partly because I think it makes sense.
The idea, you see, is to extend the idea of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly to the rest of the Kingdom, and I've been using the EU seats, pretty much because they're there, but also because they have the benefit of splitting up the UK in to some fairly equally sized chunks, some of which I strongly suspect have different characteristics.
I've looked at results of General Elections over the past fifty years, and I've started with Scotland because it's always going to be one of the most contentious.
In 1959 - the first election I'm looking at, the Conservative and Unionist Party took 28 seats - almost 40% of the seats available. By 2010, there is one Conservative MP in Scotland.
The interesting thing is when they lost the seats and who they lost them to.
28 is the peak in the period I'm looking at. There was something of a decline in Conservative support over the next 20 years, but even in 1979, 22 Scottish Tories joined the first Thatcher Government.
Even in 1983, 21 Scottish Tory MPs were elected. Then, in 1987 the number of MPs dropped to 10. It seems likely that the main event triggering this was the closure of a number of pits in the North of England, Scotland and Wales, with the consequent loss of 20,000 jobs in these areas.
The seats lost don't show any real pattern. While some are in mining areas, others (eg Edinburgh Central) are not. The main benefactor was the Labour party, who had been losing some ground to the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party.
Between the elections in 1987 and 1992, the Government introduced the Community Charge ("Poll Tax"). This was pretty much universally hated. Virtually impossible to enforce and woefully mistargeted at the best of times, it was also introduced in Scotland a year earlier than England. It's often cited as one of the reasons why "Scotland will never vote Tory again," which is an ironic impact of a choice by a party that ostensibly seeks to strengthen and maintain the Union between the various parts of the UK.
Despite this, there was one more Conservative MP after the 1992 election. By 1997, however, there were none. With one exception, this remains the case.
On 2010 results, over 50% of the seats in Scotland are represented by Labour MPs, and this would have been the case consistently over the last 50 years.
