Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom/Archive 16

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Are local authority by-election results DUE, UNDUE, TRIVIA, INDISCRIMINATE

Before the discussion above re Andrew Teale's blog gets sidetracked, I think it best to open a separate discussion on the general principle of LA by-elections and leave the details of how it is cited to that discussion.

It seems to me that council by-elections fail WP:INDISCRIMINATE (aka WP:NOTDATABASE). Unless a by-election has the effect of changing control of the council, why does it matter? And generally the data doesn't get maintained. (Yes, once in a while a dedicated individual like Alextheconservative does the Labours of Hercules but it doesn't last: there are too many to do and if it weren't for other dedicated individuals like Andrew Teale, the work involved would be unconscionable.) If we take the long view, these events really are insignificant: party leaders fall on their swords when the party gets trounced in the major round of council elections but nobody really notices a LA by-election decided by a risible turnout. The fact that it so difficult to cite a news organisation speaks volumes. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that the fact that data is not maintained is a point against its inclusion. As an example, take the pages on select committees; party affiliation, membership, and leadership quite often lags weeks if not months behind the facts (up 18 December, Julian Knight was still listed as a Select Committee chair at Template:UKParliamentCommitteeChairs).

For your point about their importance, I agree that they are usually unimportant affairs, which is why they're listed in the relevant "[authority] elections" section rather than having their own page, like the elections themselves or parliamentary by-elections. Most individual local elections themselves lead to little or no change; for the past 13 years, Barking and Dagenham has returned the same result (51 Labour councillors), but each of those elections has their own page.

Alextheconservative (talk) 17:38, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, when I think about the sheer amount of effort I put in, for years, compiling all these results for Wikipedia, I'll happily AfD everything if the mood now is that they're all non-notable. Wikipedia should be a record of facts, even if the council didn't change hands. If we're now saying that election results fail GNG, then I'm just going to delete everything I've ever done. What's the point. What's the point of doing so much for so little thanks? doktorb _words^deeds 22:56, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

If the regular elections for local authorities get pages (as they routinely do, with a well-established set of templates), then we're missing a trick if we arbitrarily say that those are notable but by-elections aren't. I agree the by-elections are seldom of huge interest, but where a council composition changes as a result of by-elections we ought to try and keep the resultant standing of the parties up to date, accepting there will always be a bit of a lag. When it comes to writing up the election results for the next regular elections, it's helpful to know the standing immediately beforehand as well as at the previous election, and having decent records of by-elections can help pinpoint when changes to/from no overall control actually happened between elections.

Local media has been in decline and so in some areas reporting other than by the councils themselves is patchy, and councils have an infuriating habit of deleting old results pages fairly shortly afterwards. That said, as well as Andrew Teale / Local Elections Archive Project, I regularly use Local Councils by consultants Thorncliffe: their weekly updates by David Boothroyd are a pretty good record for by-elections / changes of allegiance. Stortford (talk) 18:30, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• I'm not really seeing an issue here. As far as I'm aware, local by-elections don't get their own pages, and are instead listed in the aftermath section of the regular election article. Also a bit confused about the data not being maintained point. Once the by-election has happened and the results published, what is there to maintain? The figures aren't subsequently updated. Number 57 19:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think anyone's suggesting that local by-elections get their own pages (and I wouldn't support that if it were the suggestion), but the suggestion seems to be to ignore the by-elections which at the moment generally get listed at the end of the page for the preceding regular election, which I think is perfectly sensible and should continue. Apologies if I've misunderstood what @JMF was saying. Stortford (talk) 19:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  You've made a good point about the collapse of local newspapers being an issue. We need citations but if Reach has its way, we won't have any. Something to consider. doktorb _words^deeds 20:09, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  My concern was that it takes a lot of work (that is only going to get harder) to do these, so it would be a real pity if they were to be deleted as WP:NOTDATABASE violations at some future date. So if we establish a consensus now that they are worth having, then that at least is a first line of defence. It seems clear from the foregoing that this is indeed the consensus. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:55, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

  Something has pinged into my head and I'll get it down now as a suggestion. When I wanted to create articles for Lancashire County Council elections, even I knew that listing every single result for every single division with every single name might open opposition. My solution was just to do summary results instead. Another editor took offence and there was some edit warring. I wonder if this could be a workable compromise for the larger authorities, showing that we accept annual results as valid but not perhaps with every single candidate listed in full. My Wiki instincts are also looking at OTHERSTUFFEXISTS but I do wonder if we can look at how far down USA election results are compiled here? doktorb _words^deeds 07:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

  Just to jump in here, but state legislative special elections in the US are generally listed on the overall page for state legislative elections that year, like here, or in some cases have their own page, like in New Hampshire this session, if there's a particularly large focus. The latter is definitely more rare from what I can see, though. AnOpenBook (talk) 15:16, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Seeking RFC input

Looking for input at this RFC which concerns England, Great Britain & the United Kingdom. GoodDay (talk) 22:42, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Geographic data on constituencies

This is a bit tangential, but do we have data on the current constituency boundaries? We've got some nice graphics, but do we have coordinates describing constituencies? What I was actually thinking of was centroids for each constituency, either population-weighted or just geographic. Thanks. Bondegezou (talk) 15:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're interested in the past constituency boundaries or the newly proposed ones (or even if this is the necessary format), but GIS files for the former can be found here: https://www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/?q=boundary-maps/data-files and geospatial data files for the latter can be found here: https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/2023-review/ Hope this helps! AnOpenBook (talk) 03:27, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

That's fantastic - thanks! Bondegezou (talk) 14:47, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Should UK MP infoboxes include "majority"?

There is a discussion at Template talk:Infobox officeholder#Template-protected edit request on 1 March 2024 which is relevant to this project. PamD 08:09, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Upgrading from Stub

Hi, not entirely sure how to go about this as brand new in this Wikiproject.

I put some work into Abbey (Lincoln ward) in order to get it more in line with a Start article. Wondering if some folks could take a look. K Stockwell (talk) 00:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Brian Rose

Brian Rose is standing again in the 2024 London mayoral election. Some more input on the article and at Talk:Brian_Rose_(podcaster)#Lead_phrasing would be helpful, please! Bondegezou (talk) 18:45, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Customs Union

There is an article United Kingdom–Crown Dependencies Customs Union does this fall under the scope of politics of the United Kingdom?ChefBear01 (talk) 19:33, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Merge discussion at 2024 Scottish government crisis

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2024 Scottish government crisis, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. There is a proposal to merge this article into Bute House Agreement. Clyde1998 (talk) 10:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

UK political parties template getting too big

Template:Political parties in the United Kingdom is used on a large number of articles. It currently lists 16 parties with Parliamentary/Assembly representation and another 25 without. However, following Thursday's elections, we should be adding another 8 minor parties under the current criteria. Are these rules too inclusive? Is the template getting too big? Please input at Template_talk:Political_parties_in_the_United_Kingdom#Crisis. Bondegezou (talk) 09:30, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Input requested: Keir Starmer Edit Request - Kate Osamor suspension

Hello, just want to get some input at Talk:Keir Starmer#Edit Request - Kate Osamor suspension. Thanks. SoThisIsPeter (talk) 19:42, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Portsmouth Independents Party

Would someone from this WikiProject mind taking a look at Portsmouth Independents Party and assessing it per WP:NORG? It was just created directly in the mainspace the other day by a relatively new account and doesn't appear to ever been assessed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

How to get get some help with 2024 GENERAL ELECTION page

I was wondering how to get peoples attention to discussion on the talk page on the current election talk page. Its in relational to the Predictions 4/3/2/1 before the vote. I would like a wide range of opinions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#Predictions........_before_the_vote Crazyseiko (talk) 20:27, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

'Premiership of...' question

There is currently an article called Labour Party leadership of Keir Starmer which details Starmer's time as the Leader of the party so far. However, all prime ministers have a 'Premiership of __' article. If Starmer does become the next prime minister in July, what should happen to the 'leadership' article? Should it be merged into the 'Premiership' article or kept separate as an article detailing his time in opposition? It is already quite long as it is. Thanks Michaeldble (talk) 12:33, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency)

Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm _Talk 00:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

2024 GENERAL ELECTION ANNOUNCEMENT

The Prime Minister has announced that the 58th Parliament of the United Kingdom will be dissolved on 30th May and a general election will be held on 4th July.

Veteran members of this WikiProject will be a familiar with an issue that I have raised at many prior elections - upon dissolution of the legislative body its members lose their status as such and thus can no longer use the relevant post-nominals (e.g. MP, MSP, MLA, AM). This requires us as Wikipedians to spend a great many hours frantically editing hundreds of pages to remove any reference to incumbency at the start of the campaign... then a load more hours adding them back in again after the results come in.

In 2021, in advance of the Senedd election, I came up with a solution that seemed to be reasonably well received - a flair that could be put at the top of all relevant biographies for the duration of the election period and then removed afterwards. This gives all necessary disclaimers and avoids us having to dig deep into the details of each individual article to make multiple edits. I have devised one for the upcoming election and would like to see it enacted when the time comes.

Obviously this only needs to be used for those incumbents who are seeking re-election. Those who are stepping down can go straight to proper rewrites. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 21:41, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Not many people will understand that though - ordinal numbers for Parliaments are not generally used in the UK. It is the 2019-2024 Parliament. -- DeFacto (talk). 22:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Good point: remove "58th", add 2024 to date. Otherwise a useful idea. 05:48, 23 May 2024 (UTC) PamD 05:48, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm probably picking hairs, but that sounds a bit patronising to say "not many people will understand that." Particularly given I support the clearer dates based wording. Rankersbo (talk) 06:57, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the ordinal and just left it at "the British House of Commons". Since originally posting this, I have come up with another idea: I can temporarily change the wording to something like "The subject of this article is currently a member of the British House of Commons, which is due to dissolve on 30th May in advance of the general election on 4th July." so that we can do all the work of putting the tags on MPs' articles before the day of dissolution and then simply revert the wording on the template the minute the royal proclamation is read out. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 21:28, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps "be dissolved" rather than "dissolve", and remove the "th"s from the dates per MOS:NUM. PamD 06:16, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

This seems like overkill to me. Why not just have a short template on the not-being-an-MP thing? Bondegezou (talk) 08:28, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bondegezou, @Robin S. Taylor: Agreed. Perhaps something like:

Note: The subject of this article is standing for re-election to the British House of Commons. They will not be an MP once Parliament is dissolved. This article may be out of date.

… changed to:

Note: The subject of this article is standing for re-election to the British House of Commons. They ceased to be an MP when Parliament was dissolved. This article may be out of date.

… once we reach dissolution on 30 May? Let's not add lots of calls-to-action and balance them out with lots of words of caution. James F. (talk) 20:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

That shortened wording would probably be enough. It's not really meant as a "call to action" as it's for the benefit of the non-registered reader instead of the editors. The important thing is that we succinctly get across the point that the subject is not an incumbent MP even if the body text, infobox, succession boxes etc still say so. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 20:56, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely, totally agreed that it's much better to put in a note than try to rush to edit ~500 articles to say they're not MPs, and then (assuming polls are right) undoing the effect of ~75% of those edits. James F. (talk) 21:11, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I suggest that the 30 May 2024 date is worth including in both versions. PamD 22:33, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

It occurs to me that we could also do to have similar flairs on the articles about Parliament itself and the major parties contesting the election (as the "state of the parties" information will obviously be in limbo). Robin S. Taylor (talk) 21:26, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@Robin S. Taylor: Good plan. Probably just a bespoke inline edit, rather than a full template, given we'll only want to place it on ~10 articles. James F. (talk) 21:37, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Let’s not get carried away with a fairly pedantic point. Yes, technically, they all stop being MPs, but it’s not a distinction reliable sources generally bother with. Reliable sources happily talk of a sitting or defending MP, etc. Bondegezou (talk) 22:11, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I've started adding the flairs to pages now. I should have them done by Thursday. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 10:37, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Robin S. Taylor: Brilliant, thank you. James F. (talk) 17:02, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay, we're at dissolution eve now. I don't know exactly what time of day it will be happening so I can't guarantee I'll be at my computer for the event. I'm hoping that somebody here will be. All you need to do is keep watching the news until the royal proclamation is read out, then revert the template to my edit as of 19:47 on 29 May. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 19:54, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Parliamentary sources seem to be indicating that Parliament dissolved just past midnight. This is probably not correct under the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 so I would recommend holding any changes to the template until the proclamation is made. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 06:37, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

The proclamation has now been agreed by the Privy Council so I am updating the flair.

@Robin S. Taylor:, I have reverted your additions of a hatnote-like text such as at Labour Party (UK) and changed it to a modified version of the banner you made above. Hope that's fine. DankJae 21:26, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that works fine. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 22:56, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

End dates

I was going to come and ask when dissolution is. For those MPs who have announced stepping down can we put end dates of 30 May 2024, or do we need to wait until candidate lists are announced with them absent to do that? Do any re-writes need to wait unti 1st June? Rankersbo (talk) 06:57, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

This was discussed a few years ago - yes, terms end on the day of dissolution. (talk) 07:52, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That's not the question I asked though. I mean it's good and relevent info, don't get me wrong and thanks for reminding us.

What I was actually asking was can we start to edit MPs end dates now, or do we need to wait until after the 30th or when nominations close?

Rankersbo (talk) 07:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@Rankersbo: Thinks it fine to add an end date for MPs who've said they've stepped down, even though there is that chance they will go back on what they said and they will still be nominated by their parties. I think this because officially they are no longer MPs after dissolution, so an end date will still technically be accurate. So it's not the end of the world if for a short time an end date is included when in fact they are about to be re-nominated. --TedEdwards 15:16, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Numbering of Parliaments

Recently there seems to have been a purging of references to ordinal numbers in relation to Parliaments of the United Kingdom, both in articles about said parliaments themselves and about general elections. The justification seems to be that these are never actually used. While they may not turn up often in common parlance, there are instances of ordinals appearing in official documents - such as this Hansard reference from 16 March 1992:

Parliament was prorogued to Monday, 23rd March at twenty three minutes past four o'clock. The Parliament was dissolved by Royal Proclamation on Monday, 16th March 1992. End of the Fifth Session of the Fiftieth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the forty-first year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

or this one from 21 March 1997:

End of the Fifth Session (opened on 23 October 1996) of the Fifty-First Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in the Forty-Sixth Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.

It seems to be fairly common for Hansard to reference this at the end of a session - see 1918, 1930, 1953, 1977, 1985, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2012 and 2021 to name just a few examples.

I would particularly like to restore the use of ordinals when referring to the act of dissolution, since it can be a little confusing to name parliaments after they years of their beginning when talking about their endings. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 15:34, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Limited usage in that context seems fine, but generally secondary sources don’t number Parliaments, so nor should we (generally - I’ve no objection to occasional exceptions). Wikipedia follows secondary sources over primary sources. Bondegezou (talk) 15:39, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree – using the ordinals for British parliament isn't helpful/useful as almost no-one does, and it will be meaningless to the vast majority of readers. Number 57 19:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The ordinals aren't in common usage, and rarely, if ever, appear in the British news media secondary sources that we mostly use, so I cannot see any good reason to use them anywhere in Wikipedia. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:41, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Given that these ordinals are verifiable, I would be fine with using them occasionally, but probably at a minimum, and in cases where it would be more informative than giving a year range, e.g. in the infobox of Parliament of the United Kingdom, where it states "Most recent: 58th Parliament". — RAVENPVFF · talk · 15:17, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Help with an Article

I'm currently drafting an article here, and I want some help with trying to interpret the document I used to make the article (which is here.

The big thing I have is I don't really know what the number next to the ward name is (so for example, in the document, the first section for this specific election is "Blundson (1977)". I don't know whether this is the turnout, the registered electors in that ward, or something else entirely. If someone could help me try and figure out what this number means, that'd be helpful.

SuperGuy212 (talk) 09:44, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

It's the electorate, although the numbers don't quite add up: first one I checked for Bludston was 2007 in 1976 = the total of valid votes was 1028 which is 51.2% rather than the stated 52.5, although i reckoned the discrepancy could be explained by unlisted spoiled ballots. However, for the 1973 1973, the total is 1027 = 51.9% of 1977 rather than the stated 51.1. Although the difference is small, not sure how it could be more than the stated total. Crowsus (talk) 09:58, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Ah okay, thanks. SuperGuy212 (talk) 10:07, 3 June 2024 (UTC)