UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies – 2019 General Election Knowledge Atlas RESULTS (13 Dec 2019)
- December 13, 2019
NOTE – Although the reconstituted UK Parliament will reconvene on monday the 16th of December 2019, it will take several weeks for all the online knowledge resources to catch up, especially for the new MPs elected for the very first time.
It’s all over bar the shouting for another 5 years (aye, right!), so we can now update our 2019 UK Parliament General Election CANDIDATES Knowledge Atlas with the actual RESULTS, now that all of Scotland’s 59 constituencies have declared.
So all the previously blank cells in the embedded recent election results spreadsheets have been filled in for each Scottish constituency, the successfully elected candidate seed branches ‘flagged & tagged’, and their shiny new majorities embedded as single data fields.
However though the UK Parliament will open it’s doors again on monday the 16th of December, it will take a few days for each victorious candidate to be sworn in as an MP, and so officially re-constitute it. It will then take several weeks for all the online knowledge resources to catch up, especially for the new MPs elected for the first time. Thus even though it won’t take long to publish an updated version of our General, Geographic & Electoral Knowledge Atlas for Constituencies, we wll have to leave it for a month or so until mid January 2020 before we can publish an updated version of our Scottish Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas, but in the meanwhile this map will tell you “who’s who and who’s new, doon the road in the Big Hoose”, with all the embedded and attached knowledge resources still available for those who have been previously.
NOTE – Although the reconstituted UK Parliament will reconvene on monday the 16th of December 2019, it will take several weeks for all the online knowledge resources to catch up, especially for the new MPs elected for the first time
Our UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies – 2019 General Election Knowledge Atlas RESULTS is the ideal starting point for ‘thumb & brain friendly’ desktop (or even ‘in the field’) research for anyone with an interest in the final results, and who stood for election, in the recent General Election on Thursday December 12th in any, or all, of Scotland’s 59 UK Parliamentary Constituencies. It is made up of visual framework of…
59 Scottish UK Parliamentary Constituencies political knowledge seed branches – with unique identifying codes, embedded thumbnail location map image and a spreadsheet table coloured by party showing the results (votes cast, winning majorities and turnout) of the most recent elections in the constituency, including those for 2019, as well as attached multiple hyperlinks to core general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources, and index markers that also tag them with some of the contextual knowledge.
**TABLE NOW COMPLETED WITH 2019 ELECTION RESULTS**
59 All Candidates Collection knowledge seed branch – gathers the candidate knowledge seed branches as sub-branches, with an embedded single data field showing the number of candidates standing in the constituency.
67 Incumbent or Recent MPs Seeking Election Candidate political knowledge seed branches – these are as previously mapped by us and so retain all their embedded and attached knowledge – coloured by political party with their embedded official profile image, the sizes of their majorities previously won in the constituency as data fields, and notable changes in circumstance since they were last elected recorded as a branch note, as well as attached multiple hyperlinks to ‘Official Parliamentary’ (eg. official profile page(s) & entry in the register of members interests), ‘Official Party & MP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources, and index markers that also tag them with some of that contextual knowledge.
**BRANCH OUTLINED IN RED & 2019 MAJORITY FIGURE DATA FIELD ADDED IF ELECTED**
225 Other Candidate political knowledge seed branches – these are coloured by political party with their embedded official profile image (if available), and attached index markers that also tag them with some basic contextual knowledge. However there is only 1 attached hyperlink, which is to their candidate page on the Who Can I Vote For? website, with varying additional crowd-sourced knowledge and links to other knowledge resources.
**BRANCH OUTLINED IN RED & 2019 MAJORITY FIGURE DATA FIELD ADDED IF ELECTED**
59 All Results Collection knowledge seed branch – gathers the election results knowledge resource links collection branches as sub-branches, which have already been ‘tee-ed up’ by their creators to be populated by the 2019 results (though it remains to be seen how soon after the event!).
Together these elements establish a comprehensive & robust visual knowledge framework upon which we can build many other maps about the ‘national local’ building blocks of Scotland based on the newly reformed political makeup of UK Parliamentary Constituencies and their elected members (MP’s) in the future.
MindManager Users – As with all our maps, the MindManager (.mmap) version of this map is also both a base map to add your own content to, or a source of content that can be added to your own existing maps.
Explore the other tabs for comprehensive descriptions of the knowledge seed branches and knowledge link collections that make up this knowledge atlas map….
- 11 Never Served Before MP's Elected
- 4 Previously Serving MP's Re-Elected
- 13 Incumbent MPs Not Re-Elected
- 44 Incumbent MPs Successfully Re-Elected
- 292 Candidates Standing In Total
- 59 (out of 650) Scottish Constituencies of the UK Parliament in Scotland
- 5,056 Total hyperlinks to public domain knowledge resources
- 3,877 Total map branches
Part of the 'Governance & Politics' Category
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Knowledge seed branches provide a ‘base level’ of contextual knowledge about the subject embedded within, or attached to, them in the form of…
Image [Embedded] – Such as thumbnail location maps, flags, icons, people profile pictures etc., which provide a unique visual element that users can instantly latch on to as they navigate their way through the map.
Text [Embedded] – Rich (ie. variably formatted) branch text – such as names & unique identifying codes (taken from official sources) – is a unique MindManager feature.
Note [Attached] – Contains supplementary information with all the elements of a word processed page – variably formatted (‘rich’) text, tables and images.
Spreadsheet Table / Chart [Embedded] – Containing contextual facts & figures, which can be toggled between table and chart view as appropriate (once again unique to MindManager).
Multiple Single Data Fields [Embedded] – Another way of adding contextual facts & figures to the map (once again unique to MindManager), these are like single cells in a spreadsheet and the values can be used to format the topic.
Index Marker Tags [Attached] – Arranged in groups and added to individual branches as appropriate, tags add contextual knowledge, enable map filtering and navigation.
Multiple Hyperlinks [Attached] – Another unique feature, multiple links to a range of official definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources about the subject of the seed branch – usually selected from the full range of general & geographic knowledge resource collections – help turn the map into a knowledge portal without adding to the visual clutter.
All the seed branches and their associated embedded / attached contextual knowledge elements used in this map are described in detail below…
UK Parliament Constituency Political Knowledge Seed Branch
**Table now completed with 2019 election results**
UK Parliament Scottish Constituency Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Branch Outline Shape
For geographic area seed branches the outline shape indicates the nature of it’s borders with it’s equivelant neighbours…
CIRCLE = all coastal borders (ie. ‘island(s)’)
HEXAGON = all land borders (ie. ‘land-locked’)
ROUNDED RECTANGLE = mixed coastal & Land borders
Note(s)
i) Assignment of shapes to geographic area seed branches is controlled by MindManager’s unique Smart Rule feature using the ‘SLC – Borders Types’ tag (eqivelant to thematic mapping in GIS).
Image: Thumbnail Location Map
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ 🙂 we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
‘Thumbnail’ Consituency Location Map – The thumbnail map (which has been created by us) shows the constituency area within Scotland.
Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
ii) Due to the disparate nature of the size of the geographic areas of UK Parliamentary Constituencies, locations are not always immediately obvious for the smallest ones. If you zoom in on-screen, all will become clear though!
Text: Official Name & Unique Identifying Codes
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All names and codes are meticulously sourced from official sources to ensure unambiguous identification of the council body and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases (though it’s still not without it’s contradictions – see below!).
Costituency Name – We have taken the names of the Constituency from the parliament website.
ONS Code – The UK Government Office for National Statistics and in partnership with the devolved governments maintain a series of codes to uniquely represent a wide range of geographical areas of the UK (such as Council Areas and Electoral wards), for use in tabulating census and other statistical data, known as ‘ONS codes‘ or ‘GSS (Government Statistical Service) codes’.
Although the codes are not formally hierarchical like the previous system it replaced, ONS codes for the same type of geographic area start with the same 3 characters…
- S12 = Unitary Authority
- S13 = Ward or Electoral Division
- S14 = Westminster Parliamentary Constituency
- S15 = European Electoral Region
- S16 = Scottish Parliament Constituency
- S17 = Scottish Parliament Electoral Region
- S21 = National Park
- S22 = Travel to Work Area
- S23 = Police Force Area
- S34 = Workplace Zone
- S92 = Country
Note: By-Election Log
Additional knowledge can be attached to the branch in the form of a note. This is basically as rich an environment as a word processor page, so ‘rich’ text, tables and images.
By election log – The incidence of by-elections in constituenciess will be logged here. Not the results though, or the ‘shananigans’ of individual MP’s, which will recorded in the ‘Political Knowledge Atlas’.
Note(s)
i) By-elections in the Scottish Constituencies of the UK Parliament are infrequent, with the last one taking place in Inverclyde on 30 June 2011. That may be ‘only’ 8 years ago, but 3 (probably soon to be 4) parliaments ago!
ii) As with mapping Local Councillors, it has proved impossible to find ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Constituencies and / or MPs in the institution’s (ie. the UK Parliament’s) ‘official’ website, especially the ‘old’ version.
iii) As is so often the case in our knowledge mapping work, the only place where such information is gathered in the one, easily accessible place and freely accessible in the public domain, is Wikipedia. However…
- how quickly after the event the information appears on is another matter…
- … if at all (and we have no way of knowing it’s missing).
Spreadsheet Table: Recent Election Results (coloured by party)
As well as the ability to link to, and import, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, MindManager also (again uniquely) has it’s own in-built spreadsheet tool that allows users to create their own from scratch within a branch. This provides yet another way of packing in a lot more visually structured knowledge into a single map branch eg. election results, colour coded by political party for easier comprehension!
Note(s)
i) If appropriate, and it’s correctly structured, embedded spreadsheets can be toggled between the Table View and a Chart View of the data. However this feature is only available within MindManager. Whatever view is set there at the point of export, is the one that will appear in the HTML version of the map.
ii) Like Embedded Data Fields, Embedded Spreadsheets can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.
Recent Election Results (coloured by party) – This embedded spreadsheet shows results of General Elections in the consituency going back to 1997 (if applicable), coloured by political party for the winning candidate and their majority, but with a new blank column awaiting the results for the forthcoming 2019 election. It provides ‘at a glance’ contextual political knowledge. The results are taken from the Wikipedia article for the constituency, which contains the list of candidates and results of all general elections, as well as useful background historical knowledge (which makes it the ‘go to’ single source of general election knowledge that we have found).
Note(s)
i) The Scottish Parliament was re-established on 6th May 1999 after the devolution referendum of 11th September 1997. This is why we show UK Parliament elections results going back to the 1997 if applicable.
ii) There was a major review of consituency boundaries by the Boundary Commission in Scotland in 2005, which was required under the Scotland Act 1998 to reduce the number of Scottish constituencies from 72 to 59. This is why the results only go back to the 2005 election for many constituencies (though the Wikipedia article has results for the historical consitutuency for context).
Index Marker Tags & Goups: Various
A variety of Index Markers arranged into groups are used throughout the map to tag branches as appropriate and enable map filtering and quick navigation. Marker groups can be copied and used to do the same in any other maps.
Note(s)
i) Within MindManager tags…
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
NAVIGATION (‘NAV’) MARKERS
‘Navigation’ index markers tag the topics that they are named after. They provide another way of navigating the map – clicking on the tag in the index pane takes the user straight to the tagged topic.
NAV – UK Parliament Constituency – Each UK Parliament Scottish Constituency seed branch is tagged with it’s own index marker (it’s name), created from the branch text itself. Thus there are 2 ‘parts’ to the marker tag – Scottish Local Council Name (Council Type and identifying Codes) eg. East Renfrewshire.
POLITICAL MARKERS
Although this map is not of ‘political’ knowledge resources, as it’s about electoral areas a little bit of politics is unavoidable…
UK PARL CONS – Type – Historically there were several diferent types of UK Paliamentary Constituency, with significant differences between the way each worked. However since the advent of universal suffrage, the differences between county and borough constituencies are slight.
From Wikipedia:-
“Borough constituencies are predominantly urban while county constituencies are predominantly rural. There is no definitive statutory criterion for the distinction; the Boundary Commission for England has stated that, “as a general principle, where constituencies contain more than a small rural element they should normally be designated as county constituencies. Otherwise they should be designated as borough constituencies.”[1] In Scotland, all House of Commons constituencies are county constituencies except those in the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and three urban areas of Lanarkshire”.
UK PARL CONS – Current Political Party – Designation of sitting MP’s current party affiliation (tag is coloured as per the usual UK political party colours).
Note(s)
i) The inclusion of the political party of the constitiuency’s current MP is to help with the desktop research function of this map. Much more information is available in our UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas.
GEOGRAPHIC (‘GEO’) MARKERS
‘Geomarker’ index markers provide ‘spatial intelligence’ in a map by tagging topics as being part of a specific geographic area of various ‘types’ – administrative, electoral, statistical, topographic etc. The areas do not need to be topics in the map for them to be a ‘Geomarker’. They are the equivalent of ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
GEO Borders
The nature of the area’s borders with it’s equivelant neighbours…
UK PARL CONS – Borders Types – This Marker Group indicates the status of the constituency’s borders with all of it’s equivalent neighbours, in respect to the ocean (as per the topic shape). Thus these tags will enable the filtering of a map to show / hide those areas that do / do not have a coastline.
Possible tags…
- All Coastline (Island)
- Mixed
- No Coastline (Land-locked)
UK PARL CONS – Shared Land Borders – This Marker Group indicates which other UK Parliamentary Scottish Constituency(s) that the selected constituency shares a mutual border with, as shown on the Ordnance Survey Election Map online viewer.
On mainland Scotland UK Parliament constituency borders are contiguous i.e. there are no ‘gaps’ between them, so they have a complex interplay with shoreline, freshwater lochs, rivers, estuaries (firths), sea lochs and the ‘extent of the realm’ (the national boundary offshore). Thus in some cases constituencies share a mutual border on a water feature rather than land.
The ‘islands’ – Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles – are far enough away from the mainland that they do not share a mutual boundary with any others.
GEO Unique Identifying Codes
Within the branch text we incorporate unique identifiers codes for geographic areas for easy cross-reference with other data sources, especially GIS databases.
We also add some of the truly unique codes as ‘geo’ index marker tags to the topic. Only one topic in the map will have that ‘geo tag’. This offers interesting possibilities for adding further content at a later date.
UK PARL CONS – UK EU-NUTS2 Region – The European Union Statistics Agency (Eurostat) maintains a list of ‘Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS)‘ codes for it’s constituent member states (including Scotland as part of the United Kingdom) for statistical reporting & comparison purposes. Each member state has a parent NUTS code, and then there are 3 levels of ‘NUTS code’ for the statistical reporting areas, which in Scotland equate to…
- NUTS for member state = United Kingdom = UK
- NUTS 1 = Scotland = UKM
- NUTS 2 = Regional groupings of Scottish Council Areas…
- NUTS 3 = A ‘rag-tag’ mixture with codes covering sub-groupings of neighbouring council areas within the NUTS 2 region, single council areas for ‘large’ councils, and in the case of the ‘super large’ Highland Council area, internal geographic subdivisions along ‘historic county’ lines.
This means…
- NUTS 2 ‘regions’ don’t correspond exactly to any other way of subdividing Scotland regionally e.g. Scottish Parliament Electoral Regions (even though the nomenclature may by similar).
- NUTS 3 codes are not always unique to individual councils i.e. they cannot be used as unique identifiers.
- NUTS 3 codes don’t always follow Local Council Area boundaries e.g. the Island of Arran is part of North Ayrshire Council Area (NUTS 3 = UKM33), but is included in the ‘Highlands and Islands’ (NUTS 3 = UKM63) area for EU statistical reporting purposes.
There are 2 ‘parts’ to the marker – NUTS 2 area name (NUTS 2 Code) eg. South Western Scotland Region (UKM3).
UK PARL CONS – ONS Code – The Council’s official identifying code given by the UK Government Office for National Statistic (ONS) in partnership with the Scottish Government, as per the Branch Text above.
GEO ‘Look-Up Geographies
In the world of Geographic Information (GI) a ‘look up’ defines the link between one geographic feature and another. Most commonly this is between geographic areas of different ‘types’. For example a Local Council Electoral Ward will also coincide with ‘higher’ electoral geographies of Scottish Parliament Constituencies & Regions, and United Kingdom Parliament Constituencies. Of course the boundaries of the different geographies do not necessarily coincide or ‘nest’ exactly (though they might have done at one time). Thus relationships are often ‘one to many’, or even ‘many to many’, which is ‘database speak’ for ‘it’s complicated’.
Relationships are usually derived using computerised spatial analysis, with the results stored in ‘look-up tables‘ in databases or spreadsheets. ‘Geo’-tagging map branches that represent geographic areas is our hopefully useful alternative.
You can get more of an idea of the complexities of UK Geographihies from the handy UK Office of National Statistics Beginners Guide To UK Geography.
UK PARL CONS – UK Home Nation – As it sounds. The presence of this tag has been inherited from prior Knowledge Mappers’ maps of all the constituencies in the UK Parliament in the one map. The tag consists of just the name ‘Scotland’.
UK PARL CONS – Scottish LCs – All the Scottish local council areas that overlap with the UK Parliament Constuencies. There are usually at least 2.
There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Council Name (ISO3166-2 Code – ONS Code) eg. East Renfrewshire Council (GB-ERW – S12000011).
UK PARL CONS – Scottish Electoral Wards – All the Scottish Local Council Electoral Ward areas that overlap with the UK Parliament Constituencies. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Electoral Ward Name (LGBCS Ward Number – ISO3166-2 Code – ONS Code) eg. Barrhead, Liboside and Uplawmoor (Ward 1 – GB-ERW – S13002914).
UK PARL CONS – Scot Parl Region – Scottish Parliamentary Consituencies are divided into regions, which also have elected members. The marker is just the Scottish Parliamentary Constituency Region Name eg. West Scotland.
UK PARL CONS – Scot Parl Cons – All the Scottish Parliament Constuencies that overlap with the UK Parliamentary constituency. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Scottish Parliamentary Constituency Name (ONS Code) eg. Eastwood (S16000103).
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
UK Parliament Scottish Constituency Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all constituencies.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
General Knowledge Resource Links
UK Parliament – Constituency Representation – The UK Parliament is gradually rolling out a new website with improved information about MPs and consituencies. This constituency page is a recent addition to the site. It shows…
- ‘Representation’ tab – Shows the recent history of ‘representation’ for the constituency back to 2005, cross-referencing to the individual MP’s page, even for previous members.
- ‘Location’ tab – Shows a ‘rough’ boundary of the constituency in an embedded Google Map. Viewers are directed to the Ordnance Survey election maps map viewer website for a more detailed boundary map.
Note(s)
i) The Wikipedia consituency article shows the full history of elections and elected members for the constituency. This is especially useful flagging up material changes to consituency boundaries over the years.
House of Commons Library – Constituency Local Data Dashboard – The House of Commons Library is a research and information service based in UK Parliament. Their interactive Local Data dashboard brings together some of the key statistics for parliamentary constituencies. Select the constituency you are interested in and the dashboard will update. To find out which constituency you live in, type your postcode into Parliament’s find your MP service.
Use the links under each heading to explore the data in more detail, or browse all the detailed dashboards and briefings.
Sources are provided below the dashboard.
Note(s)
i) Due to the architecture of the site, it is not possible to link to individual constituency data profiles. Users must manually select the contituency they ant from the drop down list.
Scottish Government Statistics Portal – Westminster Parliamentary Constituency – This is the link to the constituency’s data profile page in the ‘Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies’ section on the geostatistical atlas section of the statistics.gov.scot website. As well as key facts, the data about the Constituency is grouped as…
- Social Environment
- Crime and Justice
- Economic Activity, Benefits and Tax Credits
- Economy
- Education, Skills and Training
- Environment
- Geography
- Health and Social Care
- Housing
- Labour Force
- Population
- Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation
- Transport
Wikipedia – Article on the UK Parliament constituency – As well as the full history of elections and elected members for the constituency, the Wikipedia consituency article includes the general history. This is especially useful flagging up material changes to consituency boundaries over the years.
Geographic Knowledge Resource Links
Boundary Commission for Scotland – Fifth Review Constituency Map [PDF & online viewer] – The Boundary Commission for Scotland helpfully publish GIS produced, constituency boundary maps in PDF (i.e. static) format as part of their periodic review process. The maps show the boundaries against an Ordnance Survey basemap, and can be easily printed if required.
The last review of UK parliementary boundaries was the 5th Review in 2005. A single report covering the review considerations and recommendations for all Scottish consituencies can be downloaded from the review page (multiple links), as well as an overview map of all consituencies in Scotland.
UK Parliament – Constituency Location Map – As noted in the General Links section above, the UK Parliament is gradually rolling out a new website with improved information about MPs and consituencies. On the ‘new improved’ constituency page there is an embedded map showing the ‘rough’ boundary of the constituency over a minimal Google Map in the ‘Location’ tab.
Note(s)
i) Viewers are directed to the Ordnance Survey election maps map viewer website for a more detailed boundary map. Unfortunately it is not possible to link to individual map views, so users will have to manually ‘switch on’ the ‘Westminster Constituencies’ layer from the selection panel on the left side of the window.
Electoral Knowledge Resource Links
BBC News Election Results – Constituency – The BBC News website has the ‘last couple’ of General Election results at individual constituency level (though there’s not any additional consistuency profile information). There are separate ‘sub-sites’ for each General Election at national level (2017 and 2015).
UK Parliament Elections Online 2017 – United Kingdom Parliamentary Constituency – The UK Parliament website is gradually rolling out a new website with improved information about MPs and consituencies. The new Elections Online section has overall & individual constituency results for UK General Elections since 2010 as tables, maps and charts.
National and regional seat summaries for the selected constituency are shown in the table below the pie chart, click/tap the buttons to move between country, region and county.
**TO BE COMPLETED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Constituency Elections – Crowd-sourced details of all the candidates for all elections to the constituency since 2016 (as well as the 2015 & 2010 general elections) – Blah
Wikipedia – Election results subsection of UK Parliament constituency Article – As noted in the General Links section above, the Wikipedia article on the constituency has the history of elections and elected members for the constituency.
Note(s)
i) As a crowd-sourced resource the quality, breadth and depth of the content of Wikipedia articles is entirely reliant on volunteers, who are able to source (and link to) reliable information found elsewhere in the public domain. In our experience it may be the case that…
- not all election results may be reported for every constituency.
- even if there is a long history of results, there may actually have been intervening boundary changes so the constituency is not exactly the same over time, even though it’s called the same name. These are not always picked up by Wikipedia contributors.
Candidate (Incumbent or Previous MP) Knowledge Seed Branch
**Branch outlined in red & embedded data cell with 2019 majority figure added if elected**
Incumbent UK Parliamentary Scottish Member (MP) Political Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Fill Colour: Political Affiliation
The colour of the branch indicates the MP’s political party affiliation, or as an ‘independent’.
Image: Official profile picture
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
Profile Picture – This is much reduced resolution version of the official picture on the MP’s webpage.
Text: Name, Political Party Affiliation and Constituency Represented
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Name – This is the name as given on their MP’s official webpage. Names are suffixed with the term ‘MP’ at the end so that the reason why they are listed is unequivocal…
Note(s)
i) If the MP’s name is listed as ‘Sandy’ rather than ‘Alexander’, then that’s what their called in this map.
ii) Some MP’s have a range of civic, business and political profiles, potentially at both local & national levels, so it is helpful to know ‘which hat they are wearing’ :-). For example a recently elected MP may still be a serving Local Councillor.
(Party Affiliation) – Designation of party affiliation is as per the branch fill colour.
[SEEKING RE-ELECTION OR NOT?] – If this is present on the MP branch, it indicates the reason why they are now no longer a serving MP despite being elected at the last election. Possible reasons are…
- [Incumbent MP – Seeking Re-Election] – MP has died
- [Incumbent MP – Not Seeking Re-Election] – MP has resigned
If their not seeking re-election, the seed branch for the incumbent MP will be sub-branch of that for the new candidate from their party, and the branch text will be in italic.
Note(s)
i) The status of seekeing re-election or not is also denoted by a index marker tag (see below).
Constituency – Election – Although this repeats information from ‘higher up’ the map hierarchy, it is helps users keep track of ‘who is who’ when many map branches are expanded and filling the screen.
Note(s)
i) *An asterisk after the name indicates noteworthy MP circumstances…
- they are now no longer a MP. The reasons why will also be shown in [SQUARE BRACKETS]
- they were elected at a by-election. The ‘old’ UK Parliament website did not indicate this on their MP’s pages.
- they have changed their political affiliation since being elected. Usually they will have ‘resigned their party whip’, voluntarily or otherwise, temporarily or permanently, for whatever reason. They may now sit as an ‘independent’, or they may have changed political party completely.
ii) There is also a brief topic note describing the change of circumstances more fully. This is generally taken from the Wikipedia article on the last election.
Note: MP Political Events Log
Additional knowledge can be attached to the branch in the form of a note. This is basically as rich an environment as a word processor page, so ‘rich’ text, tables and images.
MP Political Events Log – If there have been any events that have caused a change in the MP’s political circumstances, then they will be noted here (subject to the caveats in the notes below). So such things as (in increasing potential size of political ‘fall-out’)…
- their suspension of by their party or the council itself, preventing them from participating in normal council democratic processes.
- a change of allegiance – they may resign from their party and sit as an independent, or even “cross the floor” and join another party.
- their resignation / death, triggering a by-election (usually in a few weeks), that may or may not be won by another party!
Note(s)
i) As with mapping Local Councillors, it has proved impossible to find ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Constituencies and / or MPs in the institution’s (ie. the UK Parliament’s) ‘official’ website, especially the ‘old’ version.
ii) As is so often the case in our knowledge mapping work, the only place where such information is gathered in the one, easily accessible place and freely accessible in the public domain, is Wikipedia. However…
- how quickly after the event the information appears on is another matter…
- … if at all (and we have no way of knowing it’s missing).
Embedded Data Fields: MP’s Majority for each election to represent the constituency
Single data fields embedded in the seed branch are another unique MindManager feature. They provide quick reference of ‘core’ data that provides context and enables meaningful comparison with other MPs, saving the user the time and effort of looking them up in the linked knowledge resources. These are taken from official sources if easily accessible in the public domain, or Wikipedia if not.
Note(s)
i) The Data Fields can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.
ii) Data Fields are like single cells in spreadsheets..
- The data can be numeric or text.
- The values in cells can be calculated from other cells either in the same branch or in other branches. Formulas that define the values are built using MindManager’s ‘Autocalc’ feature (again unique).
- The values in data fields may be used to control aspects of the visual formatting (eg. colour or shape) of the seed branch using Mindmanager’s ‘Smart Rules’ feature (again unique).
MP’s Majority for each election to represent the constituency – The figures are taken from the Wikipedia article for the constituency (and perhaps others too – see note below) which contains the list of candidates and results of all general elections, as well as useful background historical knowledge (which makes it the ‘go to’ single source of general election knowledge that we have found).
Note(s)
i) The majorities may not be consecutive as MP’s might lose their seat at one election and be re-elected at the next (if they have the tanacity!).
ii) There may be fewer majorities recorded for the MP than recent election victories for their party (as given in the embedded results table in the Constituency Seed Branch) as previously incumbent MPs have not sought re-election. Some MP’s may also have represented other constituencies in the past.
Index Marker Tags & Goups: Various
A variety of Index Markers arranged into groups are used throughout the map to tag branches as appropriate and enable map filtering and quick navigation. Marker groups can be copied and used to do the same in any other maps.
Note(s)
i) Within MindManager tags…
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
MP – Gender – This is not recorded on MP’s listings (for obvious reasons), so we have assigned this attribute manually ourselves. Thus any errors are ours, for which we apologise in advance ;-).
MP – Political Party – As per the branch fill and text.
MP – Electoral Status – Given that we are going to record MPs over time in subsequent maps, and there may be a time lag between an MP resigning and their replacement being elected at a by-election, there is an obvious need to keep track of the status of individual mebers. Possible tags….
- Elected at YYYY General Election – All General Elections (a tage for each) in which the MP has been elected (note this may not necessarily be for the same constituency)
- Elected at last General Election – MP still serving since elected at last UK General Election
- Elected at subsequent By-Election – MP elected at a subsequent by-election
MP – Active Status – This tag indicates any change in circumstances since the MP was last elected to the constituency.
- Still serving as elected – MP still serving under the same party whip as last elected
- No longer under elected party whip – MP no longer serving under the same party whip as last
- DECEASED – MP has died
- RESIGNED – MP has resigned
- REFUSED TO TAKE OFFICE – Candidate was successfully elected, but declined to take up their position
Note(s)
i) For any status that isn’t ‘Still serving as elected’, it will be expanded upon in the topic note.
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
Incumbent UK Parliamentary Scottish Member (MP) Political Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all Local Councils.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
Official Parliamentary Knowledge Resources
An MP is obliged to submit information to the parliamentary authorities, who then publish it in the public domain on the websites as required, so access to these knowledge resources are not under the control of the MP.
There are a range of ‘official’ knowledge resources about members that are published by the United Kingdom Parliament on it’s websites. We use the plural as…
- there are a number of sub-sites that have different branding, even though they are sub-domains of parliament.uk.
- the UK Parliament is gradually rolling out a new, improved website with better, more inter-connected knowledge resources about MPs and consituencies. At time of writing this is running in parallel with the exisiting website so we include links to both where appropriate.
- even though this is an improvement, everything is still not inter-connected (that we can see), so users still have to hunt for particular knowledge resources about MPs in different sections of the website (e.g. expenses, or register of financial interests).
UK Parliament MP Profile – The UK Parliament is gradually rolling out a new, improved website with better, more inter-connected knowledge resources about MPs and constituencies. At time of writing this is running in parallel with the exisiting website so we include links to both where appropriate.
The page on the existing website has no ‘self-penned’ biography information about the MP as a person, just a factual list of electoral history and committee memberships, with no interlinking to other knowledge resources.
Note(s)
i) Once a General Election is declared, the UK Parliment disables the links to the incumbent MP’s profile pages on the website so this resource will not be availables during the campaign.
UK Parliament MP Profile [NEW WEBSITE] -The UK Parliament is gradually rolling out a new, improved website with better, more inter-connected knowledge resources about MPs and constituencies. At time of writing this is running in parallel with the exisiting website so we include links to both where appropriate.
The page on the ‘new’ website still has no ‘self-penned’ biography information about the MP as a person, but has more factual information about the MPs parliamentary activities, with interlinking to the relevant knowledge resources about those activities.
Tabbed’ subsections are…
- Parliamentary career
- Voting record
- Early Day Motions
- Last election result
Email MP @parliament.uk – This is the official e-mail address of the MP at the UK Parliament. Other contact details, are given on the MPs official parliamentary profile page.
UK Parliament Hansard – Hansard is a “substantially verbatim” report of what is said in Parliament that, previously was made available in print and is now available online. Members’ words are recorded, and then edited to remove repetitions and obvious mistakes, albeit without taking away from the meaning of what is said. Hansard also reports decisions taken during a sitting and records how Members voted to reach those decisions in Divisions.
House of Commons – The Register of Members’ Financial Interests – This is one of several registers in the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards section of the current parliament website. A new register of members’ financial interests is published each year as both PDF and HTML, with the ‘current’ register updated at regular intervals through the year.
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) Expenses Tracker – This site allows users to interactively view individual MPs expenses since 2010, filtering by year and expense type.
Official Party / MP Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is directly controlled by the MP, or their political party, and consists of websites and social media accounts. As is the case with the ‘real world’, some MPs have a bigger / more active ‘online presence’ than others…
Official Party MP Profile – Most political parties provide a profile page of their MP’s on their main website. They are usually fairly minimal in content. They may have some personal biography information, but at the very least will have contact details for the MP and their local party association. Sometimes this is the only ‘official’ website an MP has.
MP’s Official Website – This is the MP’s own wesbite and so is presumably under their control. That said some are better than others (or even absent completely), and are more personalised than ‘corporate template’. They usually provide details of how to get in touch with the MP and local surgeries for constituents.
Facebook – MP’s Facebook page if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do.
Twitter – MP’s Twitter feed if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do, or still have (it’s not as if politicians could get vilified for something that they had ‘tweeted’ in the past or anything like that…).
Externally Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is published by external, and therefore ‘unofficial’, parties. With the sophisticated level of web technology available now, some combine and repackage knowledge from official parliamentary sources on the one ‘page’ as a service to consitiuents so they can get the full picture of what their MP is actually doing in parlaiment. And then there’s good old Wikipedia, which is amazingly ‘current’ on UK politics.
The Public Whip Voting Record – A not for profit, open source project that ‘scrapes’ the flat text of the parliament Hansard (daily transcription of what is said) and turns it into a useful online database of meaningful knowledge about how individual MPs have voted on specific ‘divisions’.
TheyWorkForYou – Another not for profit project run by mySociety, that ‘scrapes’ a variety of online sources of MPs activities in parliament and turns them into a useful online knowlegde base of not just how individual MPs have voted on specific issues, but also some analysis and sharing tools.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Crowd-sourced details of the MP as an election candidate in all UK elections going back to 2016 (plus the 2015 & 2010 general elections).
Wikipedia – Article on MP (if available) – There is a Wikipedia article on just about all MP’s, though the amount and quality of the content does vary. Usually it contains a bit more personal biographical information than is available from ‘official’ sources.
Note(s)
i) As with all Wikipedia links…
- If you know something that’s not there, get involved and add your contribution to the article so everybody can benefit from your knowledge.
- The external Links’ section at the bottom of the articles provides a great ‘jumping off point’ to discover new knowledge resources.
WriteToThem – Another not for profit project run by mySociety, this time providing a quick way of emailing your local elected representatives, including MPs.
Candidate (Other) Knowledge Seed Branch
**Branch outlined in red & embedded data cell with 2019 majority figure added if elected**
Non Sitting MP Candidate Political Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Fill Colour: Political Affiliation
The colour of the branch indicates the Candidate’s political party affiliation, or as an ‘independent’.
Image: Official profile picture
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
Profile Picture – This is much reduced resolution version of the official ‘campaign picture’ of the candidate if we have managed to find one in the public domain.
Note(s)
i) Surprisingly in this day and age, not every candidate has an official picture for their campaign, especially if they are not from one of the ‘main parties’. If they aren’t even on social media (again surprisingly common) we can’t even source an unofficial picture either, so some candidtes will have no picture at all.
Text: Name, Political Party Affiliation and Constituency Standing In
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Name – This is the candidate’s name as given on the constituency election page on the Who Can I Vote For? website, cross-referenced with the constituency’s Wikipedia page, which will have a new sub-section on the forthcoming election with a results table which will be blank apart from the names & parties of the candidates.
(Party Affiliation) – Designation of party affiliation is as per the branch fill colour.
Constituency – Election – Although this repeats information from ‘higher up’ the map hierarchy, it is helps users keep track of ‘who is who’ when many map branches are expanded and filling the screen.
Index Marker Tags & Goups: Various
A variety of Index Markers arranged into groups are used throughout the map to tag branches as appropriate and enable map filtering and quick navigation. Marker groups can be copied and used to do the same in any other maps.
Note(s)
i) Within MindManager tags…
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
CANDIDATE – Active Status – This tag has proved necessary as, even though the election campaign is not long underway, already candidates have been ‘disowned’ by their parties, but as the deadline for nominating candidates has now passed they cannot be replaced! Possible tags…
- Still Endorsed by Party
- No Longer Endorsed by Party
CANDIDATE – Electoral History – The big caveat here is ‘where known’, although the situation is improving (see note below). Possible tags….
- Elected at YYYY General Election – All General Elections (a tag for each) in which the Candidate has been elected (as far as we have been able to find out).
Note(s)
i) As noted already the starting point for the creation of this map is our UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas (5 Nov 2019). In that we did incorporate some electoral history of the incumbent MP’s (that which we could most easily find), and so decided to try and do it for all the 292 candidates in this election. Fortunately by now…
- we have become more familiar with our public domain knowledge sources.
- Some of these resources have themselves ‘stepped up a gear’ in their efforts to compile useful information about already – and previously – elected, and ‘want to be’, politicians at local as well as national level.
ii) The main source for this personal history information is Wikipedia, by looking at the lists of candidates in the results tables for previous elections in the constituency. Who Can I Vote For? does have a ‘Previous Electoral History’ section on the candidates page, but it is usually blank for those that haven’t already been elected since 2016. However I’m sure gaps will be filled in as this crowd-sourced online project develops over the coming months and years.
iii) Given that many MP’s were previously Local Councillors, we’re sure that even those candidates that do have some Westminster electoral history recorded in our sources may not all have this aspect covered. However as noted in our Scottish Local Councils, Electoral Wards & Local Councillors – Political Knowledge Atlas (9 Oct 2019), which is the first and only digital compilation of political knowledge resources about Scotland’s 1,227 Local Councillors, it is very difficult and time consuming to find out individual political history at a local level.
CANDIDATE – Electoral Status – Blah
This is basically a duplicate of the ‘MP – Electoral Status’ tag, and so is only present for current (or elected since 2015) MPs. However as per the previous tag group, we hope to be able to expand this one in the future as more electoral history is made available in the public domain. Possible tags….
- Incumbent MP Seeking Re-Election.
- Previous MP Seeking Re-Election
CANDIDATE – Gender – This is not recorded on any candidate listings (for obvious reasons), so we have assigned this attribute manually ourselves. Thus any errors are ours, for which we apologise in advance ;-).
CANDIDATE – Political Party – As per the branch fill and text.
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
Non Sitting MP Candidate Political Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all Local Councils.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
Externally Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is published by external, and therefore ‘unofficial’, parties. With the sophisticated level of web technology available now, some combine and repackage knowledge from official parliamentary sources on the one ‘page’ as a service to consitiuents so they can get the full picture of what their MP is actually doing in parlaiment. And then there’s good old Wikipedia, which is amazingly ‘current’ on UK politics.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Crowd-sourced details of the MP as an election candidate in all UK elections going back to 2016 (plus the 2015 & 2010 general elections).
**BLURB NEEDS UPDATING FOR NON-STANDARD ‘LINKS COLLECTIONS’?**
Hyperlinks to official / definitive / ‘plain old useful’ knowledge resources found in the public domain is one of the main focus of our knowledge maps. Links are added to our maps in 2 ways…
Multiple Hyperlinks Attached To Seed Branches – MindManager has the unique ability to attach multiple hyperlinks to a single map branch. This means that…
- maps need fewer branches so are less visually cluttered.
- a single branch can become a mini knowledge portal in it’s own right (one of the reasons why we call them ‘knowledge seed branches’).
- links to core knowledge resources (usually the most important links taken from the Link Collections) can remain with the branch when it’s re-used in other maps, whether or not it’s the kep focus of that map.
The multiple hyperlinks attached to the different types of knowledge seed branches in this map are already detailed in the ‘Seed Branches’ tab.
Knowledge Link Sub-Branch Collections – Sub-branches – each with a single attached hyperlink to an external knowledge resource – are grouped into related collections, such as ‘General Knowledge Resources’ or ‘Geographic Knowledge Resources’. This makes for easier, more ‘thumb friendly’ browsing & discovery of knowledge resources, which helps in more intensive activities like prolonged desktop research.
The knowledge link sub-branch collections in this map are detailed below…
General Election CANDIDATES Knowledge Resources
General Election CANDIDATES Knowledge Resources
When a general election is called by the UK Parliament there is a strict timetable of events that must be followed. Of partiicular releveance to this map is the fact that candidate nominations close at 4pm 19 working days before the poll. This means that…
- there is not much time for candidates to produce campaigning material ie. knowledge resources that we can link to in a map.
- unless you are successfully elected, it will only be relevant for the brief period of the campaign.
Thus there is a limit to new knowledge resources we can incorporate into this map within the necessary timescales, especially for candidaes that are not incumbent or previous MPs .
Note(s)
i) Once nominations have close, candidate details cannot be changed and they will be published ‘as is’ on the ballot paper. Thus if parties withdraw their support for a candidate before the poll takes place (as is already the case for several in this election), there name will still appear on the ballot paper next to their party.
General Election CANDIDATES Knowledge Resources
Incumbent MPs
For incumbent MPs seeking re-election, most of the official parliament-produced knowledge resources about them remain accessible online and so you – the voter – can use them to come to your own opinion as to how well they have served you over their term.
Note(s)
i) Their own / party resources may be re-branded as ‘candidate’ as technically they are no longer an MP during the weeks of a General Election campaign.
ii) If they are not seeking re-election, then the resources about them can still be used as part of ‘the mix’ when assessing their party and the successor candidate they have nominated.
Previous MP’s
It can be the case that one of the other candidates standing from another party was previously the MP for the consituency and they are seeking to regain their ‘seat’ at this election. They can be indentified by their election majority(ies) embedded in the topic, and the presence of the sub-branch collection of links to the public domain knowledge resources about their time as the MP (though not all of them may still be accessible).
Note(s)
i) Very occasionally a candidate may previously have been an MP for a different constituency than the one they are contesting at this election. In these cases their winning majorities will not be embedded in their seed topic, but there will be still be knowledge resource links to their time as an MP.
Thus all the knowledge link collections identified in our UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas (5 Nov 2019) should still be accessible for Incumbent and Previous MPs seeking re-election…
Official Parliamentary Knowledge Resources
An MP is obliged to submit information to the parliamentary authorities, who then publish it in the public domain on the websites as required, so access to these knowledge resources are not under the control of the MP.
There are a range of ‘official’ knowledge resources about members that are published by the United Kingdom Parliament on it’s websites. We use the plural as…
- there are a number of sub-sites that have different branding, even though they are sub-domains of parliament.uk.
- the UK Parliament is gradually rolling out a new, improved website with better, more inter-connected knowledge resources about MPs and consituencies. At time of writing this is running in parallel with the exisiting website so we include links to both where appropriate.
- even though this is an improvement, everything is still not inter-connected (that we can see), so users still have to hunt for particular knowledge resources about MPs in different sections of the website (e.g. expenses, or register of financial interests).
UK Parliament MP Profile – The UK Parliament is gradually rolling out a new, improved website with better, more inter-connected knowledge resources about MPs and constituencies. At time of writing this is running in parallel with the exisiting website so we include links to both where appropriate.
The page on the existing website has no ‘self-penned’ biography information about the MP as a person, just a factual list of electoral history and committee memberships, with no interlinking to other knowledge resources.
Note(s)
i) Once a General Election is declared, the UK Parliment disables the links to the incumbent MP’s profile pages on the website so this resource will not be availables during the campaign.
UK Parliament MP Profile [NEW WEBSITE] -The UK Parliament is gradually rolling out a new, improved website with better, more inter-connected knowledge resources about MPs and constituencies. At time of writing this is running in parallel with the exisiting website so we include links to both where appropriate.
The page on the ‘new’ website still has no ‘self-penned’ biography information about the MP as a person, but has more factual information about the MPs parliamentary activities, with interlinking to the relevant knowledge resources about those activities.
Tabbed’ subsections are…
- Parliamentary career
- Voting record
- Early Day Motions
- Last election result
Email MP @parliament.uk – This is the official e-mail address of the MP at the UK Parliament. Other contact details, are given on the MPs official parliamentary profile page.
UK Parliament Hansard – Hansard is a “substantially verbatim” report of what is said in Parliament that, previously was made available in print and is now available online. Members’ words are recorded, and then edited to remove repetitions and obvious mistakes, albeit without taking away from the meaning of what is said. Hansard also reports decisions taken during a sitting and records how Members voted to reach those decisions in Divisions.
House of Commons – The Register of Members’ Financial Interests – This is one of several registers in the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards section of the current parliament website. A new register of members’ financial interests is published each year as both PDF and HTML, with the ‘current’ register updated at regular intervals through the year.
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) Expenses Tracker – This site allows users to interactively view individual MPs expenses since 2010, filtering by year and expense type.
Official Party / MP Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is directly controlled by the MP, or their political party, and consists of websites and social media accounts. As is the case with the ‘real world’, some MPs have a bigger / more active ‘online presence’ than others…
Official Party MP Profile – Most political parties provide a profile page of their MP’s on their main website. They are usually fairly minimal in content. They may have some personal biography information, but at the very least will have contact details for the MP and their local party association. Sometimes this is the only ‘official’ website an MP has.
MP’s Official Website – This is the MP’s own wesbite and so is presumably under their control. That said some are better than others (or even absent completely), and are more personalised than ‘corporate template’. They usually provide details of how to get in touch with the MP and local surgeries for constituents.
Facebook – MP’s Facebook page if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do.
Twitter – MP’s Twitter feed if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do, or still have (it’s not as if politicians could get vilified for something that they had ‘tweeted’ in the past or anything like that…).
Externally Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is published by external, and therefore ‘unofficial’, parties. With the sophisticated level of web technology available now, some combine and repackage knowledge from official parliamentary sources on the one ‘page’ as a service to consitiuents so they can get the full picture of what their MP is actually doing in parlaiment. And then there’s good old Wikipedia, which is amazingly ‘current’ on UK politics.
The Public Whip Voting Record – A not for profit, open source project that ‘scrapes’ the flat text of the parliament Hansard (daily transcription of what is said) and turns it into a useful online database of meaningful knowledge about how individual MPs have voted on specific ‘divisions’.
TheyWorkForYou – Another not for profit project run by mySociety, that ‘scrapes’ a variety of online sources of MPs activities in parliament and turns them into a useful online knowlegde base of not just how individual MPs have voted on specific issues, but also some analysis and sharing tools.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Crowd-sourced details of the MP as an election candidate in all UK elections going back to 2016 (plus the 2015 & 2010 general elections).
Wikipedia – Article on MP (if available) – There is a Wikipedia article on just about all MP’s, though the amount and quality of the content does vary. Usually it contains a bit more personal biographical information than is available from ‘official’ sources.
Note(s)
i) As with all Wikipedia links…
- If you know something that’s not there, get involved and add your contribution to the article so everybody can benefit from your knowledge.
- The external Links’ section at the bottom of the articles provides a great ‘jumping off point’ to discover new knowledge resources.
WriteToThem – Another not for profit project run by mySociety, this time providing a quick way of emailing your local elected representatives, including MPs.
General Election CANDIDATES Knowledge Resources
Other Candidates
One of our guiding philosophies is to avoid re-inventing the wheel whenever possible, and to close virtuous data circles. So all other candidates only have a single link to their entry on the Who Can I Vote For? project website. This is a crowd-sourced platform created and supported by Democracy Club (a not-for profit pro democracy charity), which attampts to bring together all that’s known about all the candidates standing for election in the constituency, with links to all the knowledge resources known about them (i.e. all the things that are linked to for MP’s like party profile pages and social media), and a candidate statement.
One of the most useful features is the links to their previous electoral history, as many candidates will have stood in the general election before (usually for the same constituency). It is also often the case that they stood in local council elections, and indeed may even be currently serving local councillors.
However as you will see there is a considerable variation in quantity & quality of what is known about an individual candidate. For many it is nothing but a twitter account, and for some it is literally nothing – no page on their party website (or a page with no content), no social media presence, no e-mail address, not even a photo….. (so good luck coming to a ‘considered decision’ as to who give your vote for!).
Note(s)
i) As with all crowd-sourced online resources, if you know something that they don’t (you may even be a candaidate or part of their campaign team), then please add your knowledge contribution for the benefit of all (the instructions are all on the page).
Candidate – Other
General Election RESULTS Knowledge Resources
General Election RESULTS Knowledge Resources
With election results it’s all about the time lag between when they are publicly declared by the Returning Officer in individual constituencies after ‘the count’, and they are gathered, compiled and published online as a national picture in the public domain by our source knowledge sites.
However on it’s old website, the UK Parliament itself does not publish the results in ‘real time’. All those individual constituency results first have to be ‘verified’ by the House of Commons Library, which can take several weeks, and when the results are finally published, it’s as a downloadable PDF format! The new UK Parliamant website has a dedicated election results section that will hopefully be a long term archive, however how long it takes for the upcoming election results to appear there remains to be seen.
This means that the main sources we have to rely on for the publication of election results ‘as soon as possible’, so we can publish a ‘results’ version of this map ‘as soon as possible’, are ‘external’ (to use the language of the resource link collections about individual MPs).
BBC News Election Results – Constituency – This page currently shows the results of the ‘last couple’ of general elections and will be updated soon after the results are declared for the constituency.
Note(s)
i) In our experience the BBC News Election website is the quickest to publish the results of the election, often within a few minutes of them being declared for a constituency on the ‘live’ election broadcast (also by the BBC!).
ii) There’s not much additional consistuency profile information o this page, apart from a rudimentary map.
iii) There are separate ‘sub-sites’ for the General Elections in 2017 and 2015 linked to from within the page. The sites for the 2010 and 2005 elections are still online and ‘findable’ with a Google search, but they are ‘no longer supported’. In other words the BBC news site is not a long term archive of election resultsI
UK Parliament Elections Online 2017 – Constituency – The UK Parliament website is gradually rolling out a new website with improved information about MPs and consituencies. The new Elections Online section has overall & individual constituency results for UK General Elections since 2010 as tables, maps and charts. National and regional seat summaries for the selected constituency are shown in the table below the pie chart, click/tap the buttons to move between country, region and county.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Constituency – Crowd-sourced details of all the candidates for all elections to the constituency since 2016 (as well as the 2015 & 2010 general elections). Winning candidates will be be indicated on the list, but not the actual number of votes cast, so it’s currently an archive of outcomes rather than results.
Wikipedia – Election results subsection of UK Parliament constituency Article – There is already a new sub-section on the forthcoming election with a results table which is blank apart from the names & parties of the candidates and just waiting to be filled in.
Note(s)
i) How long it takes for the new results to be added to the page after thay have been publicaly declared will be entirely dependant on Wikipedia voluntary contributors. We have a feeling it may take ‘hours’ if not ‘days’ rather than the ‘minutes’ of the hugely resources state broadcaster, but we’ll see.
We are continually striving to find further, freely accessible in the public domain definitive / official / plain old useful 🙂 knowledge resources to link to in our maps, as well as keeping the existing links up to date. The changelogs below summarise the actions undertaken to initially create – and subsequently update – this knowledge map.
UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies – 2019 General Election Knowledge Atlas RESULTS (13 Dec 2019)
Version – 1.0
Links to knowledge resources – 5,056
Map Branches – 3,877
File Sizes – HTML5 – 30.8 MB; MindManager (.mmap) – 21.5 MB
Basemap(s) – UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies – 2019 General Election Knowledge Atlas CANDIDATES (21 Nov 2019)
Actions – The main work done in making this version of the map was…
Adaptation of basemap to show the election results.
- Put red border around the seed branch of the successful candidate, add an embedded data field of their 2019 majority and update their attached ‘electoral status’ marker tag.
- Populate the ‘2019’ column of the embedded recent elections results table in the constituency seed branch, and update the ‘current political party’ index marker if required.
Note(s)
i) On this the morning of the day after the election, most of the constituency pages on Wikipedia have not been updated. Likewise the UK Parliament’s Election Results Online site is still stuck on 2017.
ii) The BBC News election site results were updated within minutes of being declared for each constituency (we were watching live through the wee small hours!)
Map Facts
Here are some of the ‘fun facts’ 😉 about the 2019 General Election in Scotland’s 59 United Kindom Parliament Constituencies that we have discovered (and embedded!) during the process of creating this map…
Newly Elected MP's
Elected - 44 incumbent MPs (13 not re-elected), 4 previously serving MPs, 11 never served before MPs
By Political Party
Newly Elected MP's - SNP: 48 LDP: 4 Lab: 1 Con: 6
By Gender
Newly Elected MP's - Female: 16 Male: 43
By Majority
East Dunbartonshire [SNP]
Falkirk [SNP]
Candidates
292 candidates from 15 different parties standing across the 59 constituencies
By Political Party
Candidates - SNP: 59 LDP: 59 Lab: 59 Grn: 26 Con: 59 Oth: 34
By Gender
Candidates - Female: 117 Male: 175
By Electoral History
Incumbent MP's
57 out of 59 standing for re-election
By Political Party
MP's - SNP: 35 LDP: 4 Lab: 7 Con: 13
By Gender
MP's - Female: 15 Male: 44
By Majority
Edinburgh South [Lab]
North East Fife [SNP]
Constituencies
59 Scottish constituencies out of 650 total for UK
Geographic Area
Smallest & Largest
Glasgow North
Ross, Skye and Lochaber
Population
Smallest & Largest
Na h-Eileanan an Iar
Linlithgow and East Falkirk
Population Density
Smallest & Largest
Na h-Eileanan an Iar
Edinburgh North and Leith Constituency
Map Features
We take full advantage of MindManager’s many unique ‘information cartography’ features when creating our unique maps so we can pack in 1000’s of ‘bits’ of knowledge into a single, visually structured, intuitive to navigate document that can be easily shared. Here are the main features of this UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies – 2019 General Election Knowledge Atlas CANDIDATES (21 Nov 2019) …
Big Map With 100's Of Branches & Resource Links And Capacity For Plenty More
With 4,968 knowledge resource links over 3,877 branches, this map is a useful, contextual knowledge resource in it’s own right, as well as being a visually structured index of the best definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources available in the public domain about the subject. Thanks to MindManager’s unique capabilities it has plenty of spare capacity for further content to be added in the future.
Main Branches Create Robust Visual Framework For 'Seed Branches'
The 1st level branches form the main (‘org-tree’) visual framework within which the map content of interest sits. It is a simple ‘A – Z’ layout, with the 2nd level Scottish United Kingdom Parliament Constituency branches arranged alphabetically in 7 groups of approximately equal sizes to pack as much in to a ‘single screen view’ as possible.
Visually Rich 'General Knowledge Seed' Branch For Each Of Scotland's 59 UK Parliment Constituencies
The 2nd level branches are political ‘knowledge seed points’ for individual United Kingdom Parlaiment constituencies. They contain the name & official constituency identifier codes in variably formatted (‘rich’) text, and a thumbnail location map image to aid user navigation and provide spatial context. This is supplemented by the variation in topic shape, which indicates the status of the borders with neighbouring electoral wards – all coastlal (ie. island), mixed or all land (ie. landlocked). There is also a table of the results by party for the most recent (half dozen or so) General Elections & by-elections, coloured by party, as well as multiple hyperlinks to public domain general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources about the constituency.
The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Embedded Spreadsheet Contains 'Recent' General Election Results For The Constituency
Data features embedded within seed branches – like spreadsheets, charts & data fields (another unique MindManager feature) – provide another ‘channel’ of knowledge that adds context to the more detailed knowledge contained in the public domain resources linked to in the map. The embedded spreadsheet is a table of the results by party for the most recent General Elections & by-elections, coloured by party. Results go back to 1997 at most ie. 20 years or so (though a few consituencies were only formed in 2005 at the last boundary review). As well as the results for each party candidate, the turnout, and the majority of the winning candidate are also recorded. An additional column has been added for the 2019 General Election results, which will be populated in the ‘Election Results’ version of this map (published as soon as possible after December 12th). The colouring by party gives a simple ‘at a glance’ recent electoral history of the constituency, whilst the attached multiple hyperlinks to electoral knowledge resources will provide more detail as required.
The full list of data embedded within this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Attached Multiple Hyperlinks To Public Domain Knowledge Resources About Constituency
Seed Branches have multiple hyperlinks attached to them (yet another unique feature of MindManager maps), which link to the best definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources available in the public domain about the subject. The ‘definable link text’ gives clarty as to the resource being linked to (which can be very variable if left to the default). As well as increasing the amount of knowledge that can be ‘squeezed’ into a map without increasing the ‘visual clutter’ of additional branches, it means these links can be retained if the seed branches are used in other maps, or the map is re-purposed. This is the case for this map, where the multiple hyperlinks attached to the constituency seed branches are selected from the sublink collections in the latest United Kingdom Parliament Scottish Constituencies – General, Geographic & Electoral Knowledge Atlas.
The full list of multiple knowledge resource hyperlinks attached to the seed topics in this map is given in the map summary above.
Index Marker Tag Groups Enable 'Geo Intelligent' & Other Map Filtering Of Constituencies
Constituency branches in the map may be tagged with one or more ‘index markers’ from one or more ‘marker groups’. These enable intelligent map filtering and quick navigation. Many of the tags are ‘geographic’ in nature such that branches are tagged with ‘where’ they are – eg. administrative or electoral areas. This gives the map in-built ‘spatial intelligence’ and the ability to be ‘geo-filtered’. (MindManager software users can copy and paste any of the marker groups in any other maps).
The full list of index marker tags attached to this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Sub-Branch Collections Of Single Links To 2019 General Election Public Domain Knowledge Resources
The ‘main content’ of the map is contained in sub-branch collections off of the United Kingdom Parliament Scottish Constituencies seed branches. There are 2 collections – one for knowledge resources about all the candidates standing for election in the constituency, and one for the constituency election results (which are usually ‘keyed up’ in anticipation by this stage in the general election process). These are starting points for knowledge discovery and subsequent more detailed (‘desktop’) research. (MindManager software users have the advantage of being able to add to these branches as they go).
The full list of links in the sub-branch collections attached to this seed branch is given in the map summary above.
Seed Branches For All Candidates Standing In The Election In The Constituency
**Branch outlined in red & embedded data cell with 2019 majority figure added if elected**
Candidate nominations for the 2019 General Election closed at 4pm on Friday 11th November, 7 days after the parliament was dissolved (view the timetable here). By now candidates should have their online presence established if they didn’t have one already. The Who Can I Vote For? crowd-sourced website is a great starting point online.
*An asterisk indicates noteworthy changes in circumstances of the candidate since the close of nominations, which are recorded in the attached topic note. This could be losing the support of their party, on a temporary or permamnent basis, or their resignation or death.
Incumbent & Previously Elected MP Seed Branches Have Full Embedded & Attached Knowledge
The incumbent MP’s – and any candidates that have previously been MP’s – have the advantage of their record in office to stand on and, in this day and age, it’s pretty much fully preserved online. It’s also more than likely been captured in previously published editions of our ‘UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies & Members Political Knowledge Atlas‘, the ‘basemap’ we use to create this one. Thus we can re-use those seed branches & sub-link collections so that all the embedded & attached political knowledge resources for these previously elected candidates are retained in this map.
The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Embedded Data Fields Show All MP's Majorities
Data features embedded within seed branches – like spreadsheets, charts & data fields (another unique MindManager feature) – provide another ‘channel’ of knowlegde that adds context to the more detailed knowledge contained in the public domain resources linked to in the map. The data fields embedded in the incumbent or previously elected MP seed topic show their majorities every time they were successfully elected to represent the constituency. Note these may be not be consecutive as MP’s might lose their seat at one election and be re-elected at the next. Also there may be fewer majorities recorded for the MP than recent election victories for their party as previously incumbent MPs have not sought re-election. Some MP’s may also have represented other constituencies in the past.
The full list of data embedded within this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Attached Multiple Hyperlinks To Public Domain Knowledge Resources
Seed Branches have multiple hyperlinks attached to them (yet another unique feature of MindManager maps), which link to the best definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources available in the public domain about the subject. The ‘definable link text’ gives clarty as to the resource being linked to (which can be very variable if left to the default). As well as increasing the amount of knowledge that can be ‘squeezed’ into a map without increasing the ‘visual clutter’ of additional branches, it means these links can be retained if the seed branches are used in other maps, or the map is re-purposed. This is the case for this map, where the multiple hyperlinks attached to previously serving MP’s seed branches are selected from the sublink collections in the latest ‘UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies & Members Political Knowledge Atlas‘.
The full list of multiple knowledge resource hyperlinks attached to the seed topics in this map is given in the map summary above.
Sub-Branch Collections Of Single Links To Public Domain Knowledge Resources
The Scottish United Kingdom Parliament Members sub-branch collections – each with a single hyperlink to official / definitive / at least practical & useful online knowledge resources – are grouped into related collections for ‘Official Parliamentary’, ‘Official Party/MP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources. These are starting points for knowledge discovery and subsequent more detailed (‘desktop’) research. (MindManager software users have the advantage of being able to add to these branches as they go).
It should be noted that during the purdah period (between the old parliament being disolved and the new one declared) technically there are no longer any MPs and so some of the knowledge resources about them linked to are made unavailable temporarily. This situation has been exaserbated by the ongoing transitioning to a new UK Parliament website for some content whilst still running the existing one. Thus some links may not become available again even after the new parliament has convened (which we will sort out for the next edition of the ‘UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies & Members Political Knowledge Atlas‘ once everything has ‘setled down’).
The full list of links in the sub-branch collections attached to this seed branch is given in the map summary above.
Other Candidate Seed Branches Link To Their WhoCanIVoteFor? Crowd-Sourced Website
For the remaining candidates that haven’t been MP’s before, we have created new seed branches. As well as their official photo (or not in the case of more elusive individuals), we have added a single link to their page on ‘Who Can I Vote For?‘, which contains crowd-sourced details of them as an election candidate in all UK elections going back to 2016 (plus the 2015 & 2010 general elections). Democracy Club, the charity that runs the site does it’s best, but for candidiates in this category, the information about them can be ‘sketchy’ in some cases (or even non-existant, not even a photo…, nothing…, nada…, diddly squat… you get the picture). Like all good crowd-sourcing sites, there are facilities for you to add any knowledge that you have about them for the benefit of everybody.
Note for most candidates there is additional information, like website adresses and social media accounts ie. the sort of information that is already present in the map for MP’s. However due to the short time window available to make the map, which is the only time it is really valid for, we have made the executive descisiion that it is not a good use of our resources to capture this for 225 additional people. In reality most of them will not be one of the elected MPs so most of the newly collected knowledge would be redundant.
Incumbent MP Not Seeking Re-Election Seed Branch Retained For Voter Reference
For this election there are only 2 incumbent MP’s that are not seeking re-election (for a variety of reasons… let’s not go there…). We have included their seed branch with it’s full range of embedded and attached knowledge resources as a sub-branch of their replacement candidate for the party. If voters have access to the full picture of what has gone before, it may give an insight of what might happen in the future…
Index Marker Tag Groups Enable Map Filtering Of Candidates By Criteria
All candidate branches in the map are tagged with ‘index markers’ from several CANDIDATE specific ‘marker groups’. This enables the map branches to be filtered by candidate party, gender, electoral history (ie. which elections they have successfully been elected in previously) and electoral status (eg. incumbent MP seeking re-election). (MindManager software users can copy and paste any of the marker groups in any other maps).
The full list of index marker tags attached to the seed topics in this map is given in the map summary above.
Map Legend Branch Describes Each Topic 'Type' With Links To Further Information
Every map needs to have a legend that explains the cartographic structure, colours and symbology used. The ‘Map Legend’ branch describes the sub-components of each ‘type’ of map branch, with links to further knowledge resources where necessary.
'Contributing Online Knowledge-bases Branch' With Links To Further Information
We hunt down and assess many official / definitive / at least practical & useful online knowledge resources in the process of creating our maps. The ‘Contributing Online Knowledge-bases’ branch has links to all the ones that are actually linked to in the main map content, as well as some others that are a good source of general knowledge about the subject. It is a frustrating fact of life that some resources are organised better than others, and not all are ‘linkable to’ at the individual ‘building block’ level and so can’t be included in seed branches.
'Voter Help For Scottish Elections Branch' With Links To Useful Resources
The ‘Voter Help For Scottish Elections’ branch has links to useful links to help you registering to vote, find out which Local Council Electoral Ward, Scottish Parliament Constituency & Region or UK Parliament Constituency you live in, notice of any upcoming elections in your area and where to vote in them, and what the voting record for your incumbent MP’s or MSP’s.






