churchward

I tend to agree. Iran is no saint though and plenty of people have argued that they have harboured terrorists against the west for years and in previous times actively promoted terrorost activities. There was the Iranian Seige in the embassey in London but that was not the doing of the Iranian governement. In these times Iran has appeared to take more moderate lines with different people at the top. Which rather brings me back to the Palmerston quote they may have once been an issue but seem less so now. I think Trumps swtich of US policy towards Iran has a lot to do with his strong alignment with Isreal who do not like Iran at all accusing it of funding Hezbollah and Hamas amongst other groups.

I think the Saudia Arabia has always made for uncomfortable allies but as Lord Pamerston once said.... "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow."

Sure, as I said there could be many reasons. As I do not know which constituancy we are talking about it is impossible to say.

Voting habits do indeed change over time in a constituency. I don't know if yours has had any major changes to its coverage over the 35 years but it shows things can change. There could be all sorts of reasons the current labour MP has increased her majority not least perhaps is that people may recognise she is doing a good job for her constituents and so is appealing to a wider demographic now.

Yes they could do that. Whether there is any true improvement is another matter. Not really the point of my post though as it was to illustrate that the commission does its work independant of a politcal influence or how people vote/voted. The process specifically does not collect voting behaviour data so cannot favour any MP or party in its findings. Personally I do not see an issue with the current arangement or that they have a say in what happens as they commons and Parliament as a whole is political matters get decided. They are not marking their own homework just have the power as a collective to decide if they accept a report for implementation or not that they have effectively commisioned via the current relevent act. The deputy commissioner (the person who actually runs the process) is already a judge and his two assistants legal professionals one being a QC not sure about the other. By the way since Parliament controls what rules are in the boundary act too. The senior commisioner was appointed in 2016/17 when the previous person died. No underhand issue there. His assistants were already in post.

I think so. Not a sophisticated crusing boat but very sea worthy and great sailing. I don't have one but I have a baby brother Drascome design which is a Dabber.

It's not just Narrowboats either you will be horrified to know! I was on a Drascombe Coaster (Sailboat) a few weeks ago and it was called... Festina Lente! There was no friggin though, well perhaps a bit in the riggin'

I doubt they would mind that all but it is not an equivilant scenario. A better comparison would be if a cake was ordered from a Homoesexual proprieter with a slogan of demanding gay marriage be made illegal. The slogan on the cake to be equal would needs to be a problem to the cake baker is my point.

It is a difficult judgement but I do think that the right one was reached. I actively supported same sex marriage in the Uk before it was made possible under the law. It is right that it now should be available in the UK (with the exception of Northern Ireland) but there is also an important principle of choice for a business owner too. I do not think it is good that a business (be it cakes or anything else) must do whatever the customer wishes and in conflict with their own priciples or beliefs. Anybody running a business has the right in my view to refuse to trade. I do not think one persons right trumps another . If we belief everyone should be free to express themselves and be who they are that must work for everyone equally.

Conspiricy theory nonsense. It is a described formula and specifically avoids taking voting paterns of people into account. The following is an extract from the latest boundary review report. Factors we do not consider 22. There are a number of matters that we specifically do not take into account when looking at constituency boundaries. In particular, these are: Voting patterns and support for political parties: As an independent and impartial body, we emphasise very strongly that existing voting patterns and the prospective fortunes of political parties should not and do not enter our considerations during a review. Unlike the following issues, there is no nuance to this: we do not collect information on voting patterns, and we conduct our work without any consideration to what implications our proposals may have on the fortunes of particular political parties or individual politicians. That does not mean of course that individual sitting MPs or political parties are not effected by the changes but the process does not take voting paterns into account just an evening out of constituency size by population. Each constituency is made to be approximatley a total of 75,000 but due to the level of tolerance to make the division practical they can be as low as 71,000 or as high as around 78,000 in size. There is also a sq. Kilometre maximum size stipulated but no English constituency gets close to the maximum so is not a factor for the English Commission. It is up to the commons to decide what the polotcal implications of the change are and if they do not like it then the changes can be rejected.

That is correct, one of the key drivers of the boundary changes of constituencies is to try and get the same amount of population per constituency. There is a tolerance so they are not all completely even and the England commission are bound by law to leave the Isle of Wight with a minimum of 2 MPs regardless of constituency size. One of the main bones of contention is the reduction of the total MPs in the house down to 600. Not unreasonably the people most at risk of losing their jobs don't like it.

Parliament control the end point they do not control the construction and work of the Commission. The Boundary Commissions are independent in that the work they do is set by a set of rules enshrined in law and whilst they accept multiple sources for evidence they come up with the report free of political influence in compliance with the law. The Boundary Commission report was published for England this September there has been little time to pass it through the Parliamentary process yet. The changes proposed are significant as the number of constituencies is being reduced overall (UK) from 650 to 600 seats. The acceptance of the report is significant and makes quite a change in some areas with expansion in low population areas (Isle of Wight is an exception) so quite a lot of constituencies have been changed in the report I think less than 100 unchanged. There is no real motivation for the Conservatives (unless your seat disappears) to reject the report as it on the whole favours their party. The Labour party have been protesting to that fact and are generally the ones opposing its acceptance. It does mean however that a number (50) MPs of all parties will lose their seats as they will disappear and that is the bit causing problems. It is not surprising that the vote may be delayed until next year as if you haven't heard there things are a bit busy with Brexit. The report contents means there is a lot of work to do behind the scenes to get the ducks in a row for a vote.

It is needed to be understood how the commission work (there are several actually) . It is independent body that using a predefined set of rules (enshrined in law by act of Parliament) uses electoral register data etc. to work out a set of constituency boundaries that comply with the rules and compile a report with a set of proposed changes. These changes are voted on in Parliament but can only be accepted or rejected not altered to suit a political agenda. The only way to alter the outcome of the commission is to alter the set of rules that determine the result and that can only be done by a new act of Parliament.

Your view only works if you use what has happened to shape what will happen in the future. As long as people think like you (and then vote that way or worse do not vote) it will not change but it can and does if people work to make that change. It may not be easy but "safe seats" have changed over time. BTW if "the rest of us voted for Mickey Mouse" Mickey would find himself as an MP. I wonder if Pluto would get to sit in the house too?

Why? A time Lord is an alien species quite capable of being male or female. They do no play by our rules and small minded of us earthlings to use a narrow Terran definition of gender. The people of Gallifrey were all capable of being time lords and the Time Lord Council formed of Time Lords both Male and Female. Personally, I liked Patrick Troughton too. There has not been much like him since although a little of his clown lives on and imitated by some. As I have lived with the story and concept of the Doctor pretty much all of my life (at least since I began watching TV) it is hard to think of a female in the role but having watched today's opener I thought it was quite good and she looks to be just fine in the role. So as long as the stories are good, the monsters scary and she plays the role in tune with the tradition of the Doctor I will enjoy it. Naughty! There are no female doctors in your universe?