Barnsley, boundaries and Wales

I'm sure all regular readers will already know, Labour easily held the Barnsley Central by-election with an increased majority. UKIP ended up in second place and the Liberal Democrats in 6th place, their lowest position in an English by-election (they've done it twice before in Scottish by-elections). In terms of the polling, the Survation poll was pretty near the result, getting Labour and UKIP within the margin of error but overestimating the Tories slightly (it would have been very close indeed without re-allocating don't knows, which seems to have a rather mixed record in by-election polling).

Secondly, the boundary review has now formally kicked off - there is more information on the websites of the four Commissions (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland.) The information released by the Commissions confirms the quota and the allocations of seats to each country that I set out in an earlier post here.

It also says that the English commission is minded to deal with each region seperately and allocate seats to them by Sante-Lague (as I guessed), so the seats for each region will also match my earlier post, unless the Boundary Commission change their mind after consultation. According to the Scottish boundary commission at least, provisional proposals are expected "towards the end of the year".

Finally, the counting in the Welsh referendum is continuing - results so far are here. The BBC have released an ICM poll on referendum - full tables are here.

The BBC are concentrating on reporting the other questions in the poll, such as people's preferred consitutional position for Wales (11% support independence, 35% devolution with tax raising powers, 18% devolution with full law making powers, 17% devolution with limited law making powers, 15% think the Assembly should be abolished). However, it did actually include a question on how people would vote in the referendum (it was conducted on Monday and Tuesday) - topline figures were YES 69%, NO 31% - so the same as YouGov and rmg:Clarity.

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