Talk:2017 United Kingdom general election/Archive 7

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Archive 7

Disproportionality

Is there any reason to have the disproportionality section, whatever that even means? Its never been done before in an election article as far as Im aware. Its pushing a point of view (theres no factual reason that the popular vote should be as close to the seats as possible; its seat based elections, not national). It also reeks of original research. I propose that it be removed.--Metallurgist (talk) 18:52, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

A comment on proportionality could be worthy for inclusion, especially if widespread mainstream citations suggesting the proportionality of this election was particularly interesting. The table seems like overkill, especially if it's not found in other election articles and probably most appropriate for articles discussing the index in question (or even a new Proportionality in UK elections article) Dtellett (talk) 19:35, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Actually the Gallagher Index table is present on the page for the last few elections back to 1979. Calculations are exempt from the original research policy. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd be happy to see something on disproportionality in the article, but it should be presented appropriately, rather than a giant figure with no internal or external links. Bondegezou (talk) 08:14, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure any credible papers will cover this topic, worth their salt. Oh, do we have many such papers? How bad does a system have to be, 30-year old boundaries? Zero marginal seats? Two-party system like in the U.S. I thought we were better than just a black and white country personally. I tend to agree with most comments in this section and certainly not Metallurgist and Bondegezou for intuitive and 100% non-contestable reasons. The sort of malapportionment that excites US exactness in electorates generally is mirrored in the UK with a distaste for oppression of the small parties. It is perhaps the only grace in our politics other than free and fair elections. Hence the trembling fear of UKIP, momentum and other forces for popular change. Self-evidently the more disproportionate, the more angst and likely more wrong is being done by those who exert power. It should be covered. It must be covered.- Adam37 Talk 20:01, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Excessive map detail

The electoral map is wonderfully detailed and I like the new additions showing how different densely populated areas including the South Coast, Welsh Valleys and North East voted but I believe the detail may be excessive but only in the case of Belfast and Aberdeen. I don't see why only these two cities show all their component constituencies when there are other cities which arent zoomed in on which have more consituencies. Also the labels are a bit excessive especially for the Greater Manchester, Merseyside and West and South Yorkshire zoomed in bit. I know there isnt really a commonly accepted way to refer to the whole area but it's a bit of a mouthful. This might be something better for the talk page on the images. These images are wonderful but I think my proposals could improve their readability. Eopsid (talk) 22:07, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

That Victorian throwback of 'the Lower House' again

Is it right to continue to describe the House of Commons as the 'Lower House'? There is nothing in any key written constitutional document to call it as such and the set-up of the houses with sobriquets such as that is part of the unwritten constitution. You could even call it the commoner's house if you want to be more explicit and accurate. By virtue of the Parliament Act 1911 (the Commons can force through legislation without Lords consent after a year or so of 'ping-pong' and the associated Salisbury Convention whereby the Lords do not even play delaying ping-pong on manifesto commitments (by convention not law); and the fact the last Prime Minister from the Lords was Lord Salisbury at the turn of the 20th century, it is wholly misleading is it not in this day and age to resort to an obscure, and indeed outmoded and totally obsolete fawning notion of the Commons being the Lower House and their lordships in someway superior!

In plain English, the Commons is the dominant or more neutrally couched to pedants, elected house (with all the weight that carries), not lower house isn't it given the above constitutional statute alone! Let's not hide behind antiquated misnomers particularly in our summary text, it is jargon, pitiful and a setback for any e.g. less advanced democracy country trying to contain the power of their unelected dignitaries! Alternatively it might be construed as a sort of thinly veiled attack on the reviewing chamber, hardly necessary and wholly wrongly put.- Adam37 Talk 19:54, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

House of Commons of the United Kingdom opens with "The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.". But in the context of this article, happy to drop lower house if only to save words - and the fact it links to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom page. SocialDem (talk) 15:17, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

A good enough reason alone. Another obscure meaning of lower in that article, is the house which advances legislation but that is almost the opposite of a natural reading of the word lower which harks back to when the House carried with it lesser clout in a bygone age. Thankfully.- Adam37 Talk 19:04, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Bar chart

↓

317	10					7	12	35	262
Conservative	D U P					S F	L D	S N P	Labour

The above has been lovingly prepared and sits in the results section of the article. It looks great... some of the time. On a computer monitor, it's lovely. On smaller screens, it breaks. We had a lengthy discussion about this previously because the smaller party names have to be shown vertically, which looks a bit ugly, otherwise on small screens the name takes up more room than the block of colour should and exaggerates how many seats were won. The majority arrow is then in the wrong place. We have a fix there and the only problem is people keep re-breaking it wanting in good faith to make the names look nicer. However, on some mobile devices, the problem is worse and the whole thing falls apart. I've just tried on my smartphone and the majority arrow is still in completely the wrong place.

I propose we remove the bar. We cannot have the article displaying incorrect information. If there's some way to fix the bar so it will work on smaller screens, let's implement it. Until then, it's wrong and should go. Bondegezou (talk) 09:30, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Fair point, I love those graphs too and removing it is something I'd rather not do if we can edit. I would prefer we go with the convention of most previous articles (i.e. every article for 1951-2010) - we include the top 3 parties (Con, Lab, SNP) but clump all others under 'others'. Maybe we could do 4 parties, as in 2015, but I don't see the benefit to the reader of including the Greens (1 seat) Sinn Fein (7 seats) and Plaid (4 seats) in a *summary* graph. It's not a summary graph if it includes every party! We can also scale down the graph so it doesn't stretch as much.

So something like this (3 parties)..

↓

317	36	35	262
Conservative	Oth	SNP	Labour

Or this (4 parties)..

↓

317	19	12	35	262
Conservative	Oth	LD	SNP	Labour

I like that; should help, although I'm not certain it entirely fixes the problem on some phone screens. The problem, however, is that it would be nice to show the DUP given their role in a confidence and supply arrangement, but if you're showing the DUP, it seems odd not to show the slightly larger LDs. But, certainly, I agree with lumping Sinn Fein and smaller together. Bondegezou (talk) 12:33, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Ooh yes, good point. How does this look? I made some errors in sizing and numbers above, these are correct-

↓

317	10	14	12	35	262
Conservative	DUP	Oth	LD	SNP	Labour

Great! The letters are still going to have go vertically though. And it still doesn't work on some smartphones at all correctly unfortunately.

Can other people try on a variety of screens and see what they get? Bondegezou (talk) 14:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

So I've got a screenshot on an LG Nexus smartphone looking at the mobile version of this Talk page. This show that the smaller sections are exaggerated in size as they cannot shrink smaller than their labels. It also shows that the majority arrow is all over to the left for some reason I don't understand. I just need to upload this... gimme a sec... Bondegezou (talk) 14:50, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Screenshot to illustrate a problem with how a bar figure on a Wikipedia page displays on a smartphone incorrectly

↓

317	10	14	12	35	262
Conservative	DUP	Oth	LD	SNP	Labour

Does this work as a way to solve the issue without vertical text (it's very hard to read) FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 17:00, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Having reviewed it on mobile shrinking the text doesn't work and there seems to be no way to show the smaller parties without horizontal text on mobile. Ah, well. That'll work I guess. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 17:06, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, that looks identical on my smartphone. The smartphone display appears to ignore font size entirely. Vertical letters help, but it's still broken, if less broken, on my smartphone display.

Can others investigate on different mobile devices? I can't see why it would be just my smartphone that does this. I am minded to comment out the whole thing if we can't ensure it is correct on a significant number of devices. Bondegezou (talk) 17:10, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

I think this should be removed. I mean, the section is already too cluttered with nearly all kinds of charts possible. I think readers will already get the overall idea with one or two sets of charts... Impru20 (talk) 20:02, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Presuming people want the bar... can't we just make it into a PNG? Bondegezou (talk) 10:00, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Ipsos MORI report

Ipsos MORI's report on how Britain voted: very useful material for the article. Bondegezou (talk) 12:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I was wondering about this. The 2015 article uses YouGov's data and people will try and compare them from article to article. Do we want to use YouGov for both, Ipsos for both, or show both sets of data? They're slightly different but Ipsos has been the most frequent FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 17:03, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Voter demographics

Should we begin work on a table for voter demographics like in the 2015 election article? YouGov have already realised an analysis. CorrectiveMeasures (talk) 21:12, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Registered electors

Are there any sources on a difference between the number of electors and those registered to vote? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:44, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Conservative popular Vote

Its is very clear not one single ref matches any others, Its no good have incorrect details. I suggest we either find a proper ref that match up with others OR wait for the electoral commission report. --Crazyseiko (talk) 23:15, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

The BBC is a standard reliable source and in the absence of agreement we use that one, with the adjustment that (in line with Wikipedia convention) we subtract John Bercow's vote from that Conservative total as he is not a Conservative MP. Leaving the winning party's popular vote as 'TBA' is not an acceptable situation. And what 'official' EC report are you waiting for? There isn't one. There are spreadsheets issued months later but it is ridiculous to suggest leaving the infobox blank until that time. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 23:46, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Swing/change

From the infobox (for the three biggest parties)

Swing Increase 5.5 pp Increase 9.6 pp Decrease 1.7 pp

Surely a swing is measured as a percentage (%) and a change in percentage (from the previous election, natch) is measured in percentage points (pp)? Or so my memory of reading about psephology is telling me, anyway. Harfarhs (talk) 19:45, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

No, a swing is in pp too. It's half of (the increase in one party + the decrease in the other party). Bondegezou (talk) 10:01, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

That's a two-party swing - there are other types for more complex situations. OK, if you say so - I don't recall ever seeing a swing described in those terms. Harfarhs (talk) 16:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Think you're right that swing isn't the correct word for pp change in the infobox. But not sure if the template has pp change as an option. SocialDem (talk) 11:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I'm talking about two-party swing, but that's how the term is usually used in a UK election context: Swing (United Kingdom). Swing, in this sense, is in pp units. Bondegezou (talk) 13:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

See also the infoboxes for every UK parliamentary election since and including 1970, which agree with me. I couldn't be bothered to go back further. Harfarhs (talk) 17:16, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Note to discussants Bondegezou is will not listen to any reason, and therefore will override everyone who disagrees with their opinion. To avoid an unproductive discussion, do not engage said user. 87.117.199.189 (talk) 21:30, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Says the editor who is currently trying to redact large portions of the talk page without giving a reason].

If there's a reason you want this content removed, give your reasoning to an admin and they will do any necessary removal in line with policy. If you would like individuals to refactor their own messages, ask them and they may well do so. You are not allowed to edit other people's talk page messages in such a way as to change their meaning without permission, and you have done that with one of my posts three times now. Kahastok talk 21:42, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Speaker / Conservative seat total

I've amended the Conservative seat total to 317 in the infobox, since the Speaker John Bercow does not stand as a Conservative. This is explained in a note in the infobox. Meesher (talk) 06:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

This is rather silly in the SUMMARY STATS, since you now have complicated a simple table with an asterisk and a footnote for no good reason. Traditionally the Speaker's constituency is counted as a hold (or loss) for the previous election result where Party affiliation was declared. John Bercow won Buckingham as a Tory candidate in 2010, and his subsequent wins are, for well-established traditional reasons counted as a Conservative HOLD by all major media outlets (BBC, Guardian etc etc)

The place for highlighting this one vote quirk is not in a table of basic summary stats.

The party Bercow represented before becoming Speaker is irrelevant. He is now non-partisan. He is not sitting in the House of Commons as a Conservative, and therefore should not be included in the total. Pawnkingthree (talk) 00:48, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I already explained that you have it wrong, his constituency win is counted as a Conservative hold, traditionally, and as a rule respected by well-established reporting agencies - wikipedia editors are just being dumb here - he won the seat as a Conservative in 2010 and has held it in two following elections. You can bet there would have been Labour opposition to him if there was a tiny chance of victory, they chose not to embarrass themselves, unlike the Greens and Ukip

You're simply wrong. Bercow did not stand as a Conservative. He stood as an Independent. The major political parties do not traditionally run against the incumbent Speaker. P.S. Please sign your replies on a talk page.--Hazhk (talk) 01:56, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

See his official nomination for re-election and the BBC's result page for Buckingham. --Hazhk (talk) 02:01, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

It is perhaps worth noting that the two previous Speakers came from the Labour Party, and while in office both of them stood as Speaker rather than being affiliated to any party, so this has nothing to do with anybody's political preferences. This is Paul (talk) 13:23, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Bercow stood as the Speaker against minimal opposition, as with previous Speakers. Some sources count the Speaker under their previous party and some do not. I favour treating him separately and not including him in the Conservative total. Either way, a footnote is needed because there's endless confusion over this! Bondegezou (talk) 22:04, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Official portraits

Something that might be of interest to those watching this page: all official MP portraits are licensed as {{cc-by-3.0}}; you can find them here. If someone has the time, it might be uploading some to Commons, especially for those MPs who don't currently have a portrait in their article. Mélencron (talk) 15:32, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Overall

Can somebody put all the parties votes in the election results. Torygreen84 (talk) 14:24, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Corbyn picture

A user just undid the Corbyn picture change on the basis that "a picture from before the election is preferable". I have never heard this reason before, but for the record, Corbyn's official portrait was taken in June 2017 and the election was in June 2017. The gap between the election and his photo was a handful of days. The portrait is the only freely available, full-face, high quality picture of Jeremy Corbyn and there is a consensus on the Corbyn article talk page that this picture is preferable. To insist upon the use of a poor-quality photo instead of the high-quality portrait, simply because the portrait is a few days after the election, seems really unnecessary. There has been no change in his appearance between June 8th and the taking of that photo. He looks exactly the same. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 17:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

The image was agreed on some time ago as appropriate for this article. The resolution is fine for an infobox image on this page; of course, for the Corbyn article itself, a different image is fine/better if it's of higher quality. As there are lots of options, we should pick one from the election period, not from later. The new one is from after the election. This article is on the election, so should represent things from that time; of note here is that Corbyn consistently wore a red tie during the campaign, as shown in the image you want to remove, not the Conservative-linked blue in the new image: he looks very different. EddieHugh (talk) 18:09, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. A tie does not change his appearance and to suggest it does is quite strange. We finally have a decent picture of Corbyn and I suggest we use it. As I said, the picture was taken a few days after the election. It's not like I'm suggesting using an image from 1976. His appearance hasn't changed, we've just finally got a picture that shows the man actually posing for a photograph instead of being caught mid-speech, as before. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 19:30, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

"A tie does not change his appearance"... of course it does! If it wouldn't, why did he almost always wear a bright red one (or no tie) during the campaign? It was part of his image, his brand. This article is about the election, so showing how he chose to present himself at that time should take precedence over a small improvement in resolution. (And there are plenty of sources that comment on his (change in) appearance/dress, including the red tie: Sky, even Vogue.... EddieHugh (talk) 20:24, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

I honestly don't know how to respond to that. The picture we're using of Tim Farron dates from 2 years before the vote; of Theresa May, from 1 year before. Corbyn's photo is from exactly the date of the election and I think it's palpably ridiculous to reject a good picture of him because he's wearing a differently coloured tie. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 14:15, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

It's not ridiculous to include an image that provides relevant information about the topic of an article; on the contrary, including relevant information about a topic is what we're here to do. His image is relevant information and his clothing is part of his image that's been commented on by numerous sources (that's more relevant information). (If you really have no idea about clothing and political image, look at the first photo at Che Guevara: grainy, black & white, a bit too dark around the jaw, unposed; there must be a higher quality image available, but that's one of the most famous of photographic portraits, with an abundance of symbolism.) But it's only a photo, so I'll not waste more of anyone's time. EddieHugh (talk) 21:37, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

He's even sporting a tie!? Although admittedly, not one of these. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:22, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

general structure and content

I find these GE pages very odd - so much prominence given to polls and debates and less to the actual result. The balance is not right. The result is the most important element of all and should be high in the article. I have to scroll 2/3rds of the way down to find out how many votes were cast for each party. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.250.10 (talk) 11:16, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I concur that the results should be higher up. Practice varies here: some articles go for a chronological listing, which puts the results close to last, but I too favour listing by importance, so having the results higher up and the background following. Bondegezou (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Final results - proper table

I have finally found the time to go through and put the results into a proper table of results, just as has been done with 2015, 2010, 2005, 2001 etc (all the way back to 1832). This took a lot of effort and simply involves bringing the 2017 article in line with all other previous UK election articles. It now shows the gains, losses and net results, and includes parties who had been left out of the original table despite polling higher than parties that were included.

I have also separated out the Green parties in the UK. They are different organisations and hold different views and should not, technically speaking, be grouped together. They certainly shouldn't be grouped together as being led solely by Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley as they aren't. Anyway, hope my edit helps. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 22:15, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Voter demographics

I suggest, we move it to its own page. --Crazyseiko (talk) 00:39, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I would disagree - I've never seen an election article with exit poll data moved to a second page, it's relevant information and is in the 2015 and 2010 articles.

My personal preference would be to only use Ipsos MORI data for demographic post-election polls on these pages, as YouGov constantly changes its demographic categories, doesn't consistently publish post-election polls and doesn't provide comparable data from year to year. So I'd be happy to just have Ipsos MORI. But two tables of polling results aren't sufficient data for a whole separate article IMO FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 23:07, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I would have thought the narrative on voter groups further up the page would be sufficient (people can just go to Ipsos Mori or YouGov via links). Alternatively if we have to keep it, could move tables to the existing page Results breakdown of the United Kingdom general election, 2017 and signpost in narrative. SocialDem (talk) 17:57, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

The narrative misses out a lot of important information and relies on what media commentators have said rather than the pure data itself. I think we should follow the example of e.g. the US Presidential election which includes exit poll data. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 21:09, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

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Layout of constituency pages

Which of the following is a more appropriate layout for the Members of Parliament section of a constituency seat:

1)

Election		Member	Party	Notes
	2005	Sandra Osborne	Labour	Previously MP for Ayr
	2015	Corri Wilson	Scottish National Party
	2017	Bill Grant	Conservative

2)

Election		Member	Party	Notes
	2005	constituency created, see Ayr and Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley
	2005	Sandra Osborne	Labour	Previously MP for Ayr
	2010
	2015	Corri Wilson	Scottish National Party
	2017	Bill Grant	Conservative

Also is commentary of election results (such as "________ was the third most marginal seat in Scotland") generally acceptable or unacceptable? Are pictures of candidates and election results being declared acceptable or not?

Cheers, Brythones (talk) 16:56, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

A very similar discussion is currently taking place here and to avoid duplication and for a more comprehensive discussion please contribute there not here. Sport and politics (talk) 17:58, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

References

MPs by majority ?

I think the article could mention how many (and which) of the 650 constituencies that were won by a majority of voters. (majority = more than half, not "most"). I couldn't find any such information in this article nor in the "650 constituencies"- link.
Boeing720 (talk) 00:09, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Map error

The map on the page marks the constituency of Ashfield as Conservative, when that is not the case (although it nearly was). It appears also to marked in blue on the 2010 and 2015 maps accidentally, perhaps the constituency was confused with one of a number of neighbouring Conservative seats. Can this be corrected? 86.19.130.219 (talk) 18:13, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Section on media coverage

I've added a section on media coverage of the election. There are lots of reliable sources on it and, as the media is considered to be 'importan[t] to democratic life' (IPPR report [2015], p. 30) and 'essential to democracy, and a democratic election is impossible without media' (ACE encyclopedia entry 'Media and elections'), I thought it would make a useful, interesting and important addition. I've also added two tables in the Endorsements section. The tables -- on which parties the main daily and Sunday newspapers endorsed -- are taken from the main article on endorsements during this election campaign. I've included them here because (1.), considering the importance of the media in democracy and the elections, I thought this would be useful and important to include directly in this article; and (2.), in my opinion, it makes the main part of the other article more readily available (whilst providing extra detail if people want to click through to the full article on endorsements), which makes this article read more easily without having to go to a different article (this is following the precedent of other sections of this article, which link to another, main article of the topic but also provide an overview/the most pertinent information: e.g., the sections on Candidates, Scottish independence and the future of the UK, Seats which changed allegiance, and Opinion polling). I hope these decisions and edits are OK. --Woofboy (talk) 23:09, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Party use of social media in campaigns

The 2017 election is considered to be the first UK election in which social media made a decisive impact (see, e.g., D. Lilleker, 'Like me, share me: the people’s social media campaign' in UK Election Analysis 2017: Media, Voters and the Campaign (The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community, Bournemouth University, June 2017) -- an others in that report). It would be good to see information included in this article about the parties' use of social media in their campaigning, and about the public's use of social media, too. --Woofboy (talk) 23:17, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Use of &

In the section on media coverage -- specifically, the part listing which newspapers endorsed which party -- I've edited the list of newspapers so that related papers share the conjunction and as an ampersand: i.e., 'In editorials, The Sun & The Sun on Sunday, the Daily Mail & The Mail on Sunday, the Daily Express & Sunday Express, The Times & The Sunday Times, and The Daily Telegraph & The Sunday Telegraph endorsed the Conservatives while the Daily Mirror & Sunday Mirror and The Guardian endorsed Labour'. I hope this aids reading. (This is following grammar guides like Clark & Pointon, The Routledge Student Guide to English Usage (2016): see its entry on 'and, ampersand'.) --Woofboy (talk) 17:08, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

We follow the manual of style rather than any other usage guide, and MOS:& is clear that 'and' should be spelt out in most contexts. Sunday papers are editorially distinct from dailies, so don't need to be intimately tied to their sibling paper. I'm also not sure why this needs to be spelt out in prose when you've added tables to the article, though I do think that including tables for national newspapers is an unqualified improvement. I'm not convinced about the inclusion of circulation figures, but I'll start a discussion on the endorsements Talk page rather than here! Ralbegen (talk) 18:08, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

That's a good point. I'll go and change the &s to ands. I'm glad you like the inclusion of the tables for national newspaper endorsements. The reason I then mentioned the editorials in the prose section is because it's what sometimes/often/usually (?) happens in articles that contain tables and prose: the prose will comment on and repeat the data in the tables (e.g., D. Deacon et al., 'A tale of two leaders: news media coverage of the 2017 General Election' in UK Election Analysis 2017: Media, Voters and the Campaign).

'Full results' section

There are two problems with this:

a) The first table, naming all the parties involved, surely has the wrong title. It certainly doesn't make sense to me.

b) The data for that table doesn't appear to be accessible though editing - perhaps it has been imported from elsewhere? I wanted to make a change: the name Eamonn McCann (as leader of People Before Profit) ought to be wikilinked, as here. Harfarhs (talk) 02:38, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

No flags in infoboxes

BitterGiant, may I ask why you have reverted without any explanation? MOS:INFOBOXFLAG is pretty clear: we shouldn't have flag icons in an infobox, certainly not in this sort of situation. Bondegezou (talk) 10:31, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

"certainly not in this sort of situation" is the interpretation of you? MOSINFOBOXFLAG explictly says that Flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text. In this "sort of situation", they are useful not just to help differentiate between countries or between regions within the same country, but also between different political regimes within a given country (obviously, this is my opinion. Others may differ, but this shows that this is not a "MOSINFOBOXFLAG forbids use of flag 100%" issue). Possibly, this would be even more useful if, aside from the flag, it provided a link of some sort to the main article in question (be it "[Place]" or "Elections in [place]" or whatever). However, as of lately I'm getting suprised (and concerned) that some discussions at Talk:Next United Kingdom general election have to (seemingly) result in massive changes across Wikipedia just because some people there don't like how the local infobox is set up there. Certainly, while one can be bold, changes of this kind of nature would require a much more throughout discussion and consensus before being carried out unilaterally. Impru20^talk 12:19, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

MOS:INFOBOXFLAG says, "Generally, flag icons should not be used in infoboxes, even when there is a "country", "nationality" or equivalent field: they are unnecessarily distracting and give undue prominence to one field among many." OK, that's our starting point: not to use one.

"Flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text." The text of the infobox, the article name and the opening sentence of the article all already say "United Kingdom", so the flag icon is not conveying any additional information. The idea that it can be used to track "different political regimes within a given country" is frankly risible and relies on the reader having an unfeasible and unencyclopaedic knowledge of flag changes.

"Flag icons lead to unnecessary disputes when over-used. Examples of acceptable exceptions include infobox templates for military conflicts and infoboxes including international competitions, such as FIFA World Cup or the Olympic Games. [...] The use of ship registry flags and International Code of Signals flags in infoboxes of ship articles is appropriate." This is an article about an election, not a military conflict, international competition or ship.

This is a separate issue to the thornier matter of what infobox, if any, should be used for Next United Kingdom general election. Over many years on Wikipedia, I have come to trust that general guidelines like the Manual of Style reflect good practice. We are expected to follow MoS, and we should follow MoS. Bondegezou (talk) 13:07, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

I've replied you here in order to avoid a needless duplication of discussions, and because I assume the one at there would be a more centralized one than this. Impru20^talk 13:52, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah so basically I view the interpretation of MOS:INFOBOXFLAG being presented to be an absurd but deliberate misinterpretation of what is actually being said by those rules, which just feel like more utterly frivolous and unnecessary changes that don't consider the implications of a site-wide precedent just because you're upset with how a local box is set up. Until these changes reach a consensus in the appropriate forum, and not in the talk page of one election, I will be reinserting those flags every time I log in and see someone has removed them. BitterGiant (talk) 11:48, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

How is it a "deliberate misinterpretation" of MOS:INFOBOXFLAG? How am I misinterpreting "Avoid flag icons in infoboxes"? Indeed, read all of MOS:FLAG. Bondegezou (talk) 12:25, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

@BitterGiant: Note that there seems to be a more centralized discussion (probably the better place since this has spread to too many articles already...) at the relevant template talk page; here. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 13:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

UKIP got more votes than the Ulster parties

So why are the Northern Ireland party's visible in the six panels about the vote rather than UKIP? Ender's Shadow Snr (talk) 08:18, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Top 6 parties in terms of seats won. Kevin McE (talk) 09:08, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Scottish Greens vote tally?

Where are the votes for the Scottish Greens tallied in the results table? --Kaihsu (talk) 12:51, 1 November 2019 (UTC)