Talk:List of MPs elected in the 2024 United Kingdom general election

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Section sizes

Section size for List of MPs elected in the 2024 United Kingdom general election (11 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	4,483	4,483
House of Commons composition	863	863
MPs defeated and elected	3,164	3,164
List of MPs elected	291,400	291,400
By-elections	184	184
Defections, suspensions and resignations	3,430	3,430
Progression of government majority and party totals	2,504	2,504
Select committee chairs	6,064	6,064
See also	77	77
Notes	26	26
References	303	303
Total	312,498	312,498

"Notional"? etc

The table has a heading "party of notional incumbent" but gives no explanation of this term, nor any source for the data. There is also nothing to indicate whether a constituency has the same boundaries as previously. For example, Westmorland and Lonsdale's boundaries changed so that the BBC describes it as a Lib Dem gain from Conservative, although Tim Farron held a seat of that name previously. PamD 05:54, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And the previous MP for Leeds North West was Alex Sobel, Labour, although Stewart Andrew, Conservative, described here as the incumbent, was MP for Pudsey. Yes, the boundary changes make things confusing, but this table oversimplifies the situation. PamD 07:02, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the boundary changes make things confusing. The heading is party of notional incumbent before election, but the reference relates to the notional results of the 2019 election, which doesn't take account of byelections and defections during the course of the parliament, or changes in notional party resulting from the boundary changes. Would it be better for this column to show the notional party at the 2019 election and explain any changes in the notes column? JSboundaryman (talk) 08:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@PamD - Should I go ahead and change the second column to notional party at 2019 election and make appropriate notes for changes, as suggested above? JSboundaryman (talk) 18:36, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JSboundaryman Just make it clear what source(s) you are using for that column. At present it appears to have come from thin air. I added the source to the 2019 list, but I don't know what other source was being used. The whole question is very confusing, far beyond this list - Tim Farron held his seat, despite boundary changes (but no change of name), and it was called a Lib Dem gain from Conservative. That sort of thing needs explaining, for future readers of our encyclopedia. The concept of notional election results is something new to most people, and I found it reassuring to find an "official" version at UK Parliament.

Presumably the practice in previous versions of the list was to show the incumbent as at dissolution, ie taking note of all byelections, defections etc. I don't know how we can/should cope with that alongside boundary changes.

There are some muddles, anyway: Leeds North West (where I used to both live and get involved in election campaigns) was divided roughly 50-50, 2 wards into each, into a revised Leeds NW and a new Leeds Central and Headingley. Alex Sobel (Labour) was the incumbent in Leeds NW, and then won the new Central & H seat (which also incorporated parts of Hilary Benn's old Leeds Central, most of which became Benn's new Leeds South (which had previously been abolished in 1983). Stuart Andrew, billed here as the incumbent for Leeds NW, was the incumbent for the old seat of Pudsey, and it's confusing to call him the incumbent for LNW, and to say that it was previously Conservative (hasn't been since 1997). Ah, looking at it, I see that Pudsey contributed 52.7% of the population, although only 37.7% of the area, of the revised LNW, so there's an argument for calling Andrew the incumbent, but it's very confusing to do so. Aaaargh. TLDR: Perhaps I'm saying that there needs to be a big red flag in that final column saying "new seat" or "boundaries changed", with a link to that "overlaps" page or some other authoritative source.

Possibly the whole format of the list gives undue prominence to the outgoing MP anyway - as it's billed as a list of MPs, it would be more natural to see their party and name as the first couple of columns, the most prominent, with the electoral history downlighted to the later columns. There's already been at least one enthusiastic editor "correcting" to the winning candidate's party. But I suppose consistency with previous similar lists is probably useful. PamD 19:06, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The "notional" column should indeed be the notional 2019 results, not the state of Parliament at dissolution, given that one can confidently say the boundary changes affected almost every seat. (I'd wager they did in fact affect every single seat, but I'd be hard-pressed to prove it.) Since effectively every seat is a new seat, references to "new seat" and "held seat" are not useful. In that final column, I would think we should state only the following:

the names of any incumbent members defeated in contesting that constituency;
for any incumbent member, the name of their previous constituency if it was not the same as in 2024; and
for any incumbent member, if they were elected at a by-election.

IMO it's perfectly fine for this column to be blank in the case where we have nothing useful to say, rather than "seat held" or "gain". I'm not tied to any particular form of words, other than that "by-elected" is not a word. 86.164.84.23 (talk) 03:13, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am agreement with all your comments and will amend as appropriate. FYI, there were in fact 71 constituencies with no boundary changes, including 5 with name changes only. I refer you to 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies. JSboundaryman (talk) 11:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is looking much better, but there are still a couple of things that don't sit right. I'm not convinced about calling the pre-2024 seats "predecessor" constituencies, because that implies a direct line of single succession that might not exist. How are we determining which new seat is the "successor" to which old seat? If there's an official correlation that says that new seat X is the direct successor to old seat Y, then fine, but otherwise this would be original work. Also, this is a "List of MPs elected in the 2024 United Kingdom general election". While there's value to showing where a candidate defeated an incumbent to win their seat, I'm not sure of the value of including dozens of prior incumbents who did not stand in the election. A separate list of these probably belongs somewhere, but I'm not sure it's here. Not only were they not candidates in the election, but, unless there's a definitive answer to the "succession" issue, we might just be speculating over exactly which seat they didn't stand in. 62.31.163.130 (talk) 01:16, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although there are major boundary changes, something that this article should ideally strive for is consistency with other articles, showing MPs elected at previous elections. Prior incumbents who did not stand are typically shown on those articles, and therefore, regardless of the number, we should show them on this article as well. Leaving many empty table slots doesnt make sense, given in nearly all those situations, the information that is important is that the seat was held by the incumbent, and if you look at this articles predecessor article for the 2019 election, that information is shown on there as well. The way that the revision i was responsible for (the large revision since undone) worked was by trying to incorporate precedent from 2019, and the 2010 election, the previous major biundary change, and incorporate them. This is the kind of information which should be incorporated into this article as well in the long term. Lawrence 979 (talk) 09:28, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, this is all backwards. We shouldn't be binding ourselves based on previous articles, unless there's a very good reason to do so, such as if we're re-treading ground that was only very recently decided. If anything, it should be the other way round: we should figure out the right way to present this information on this election here and now, and then maybe consider whether or not we should do the same to those previous articles. As for "empty table slots", they're fine. If we have nothing to say, we should say nothing. "Seat held" in hundreds of cells is just noise (albeit less noise than usual this time around). It doesn't add anything useful. This is "List of MPs elected in the 2024 United Kingdom general election". It's not "Results of the 2024 United Kingdom general election, or "List of MPs who stood down at the 2024 United Kingdom general election". The purpose of this article is not to show the results of the election, but the members sitting in the House. I realise we also have "List of MPs who lost their seat in the 2024 United Kingdom general election", but I suggest that we keep the mention of defeating a sitting MP because the fact of unseating an incumbent is notable in and of itself, it is a very different achievement from taking an open seat from another party that the sitting MP may have abandoned for fear of the former happening to them. If anything, the one piece of information that would probably be more useful here is as suggested by User:PamD below: which members are being elected to Parliament for the first time. 62.31.163.130 (talk) 03:32, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In respect of predecessor seats, I don't know whether there is an "official" list, but there are several sources which link old or abolished seats with new seats, in particular the Electoral Calculus website. I refer again to the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies (Linked seats). I refer to predecessor seats in the list where an existing MP might appear to have changed constituencies but in reality they were defending their existing constituency which was subject to boundary changes and consequently a name change.

I am relaxed about any changes in the way the notes column in the table is used - as long as it is factually accurate! JSboundaryman (talk) 18:27, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorting

This table should be made sortable on MP surname, as List of MPs elected in the 2019 United Kingdom general election is. (I had hoped to find a list I could compare with Category:UK MPs 2024–present, to see which articles needed to be added to that category, but sorting on forename isn't helpful.) PamD 07:57, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This gets strange: the code looks identical, with "data-sort-value" provided, but it just doesn't sort on that key. Presumably there is some subtle difference to the table code ... can someone please find the problem and fix it? When I sort on member name I consistently see Abena Oppong-Asare at the top and Zubir Ahmed at the bottom, while the 2019 list, sorted, runs from Diane Abbott to Daniel Zeichner as expected. @Roc0ast3r and Moondragon21: as creator and recent editor of the list. PamD 08:09, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the code, it looks like data-sort-value is provided in some MPs, but just doesn't exist in most of them. Heidi Alexander, Rushanara Ali, and Tahir Ali—for example—are between Alex Sobel and Alice MacDonald; both Sobel and MacDonald don't have the data-sort-value attribute added, while Alexander and both Alis do. Basically: the table is working as intended, it's just that the majority of MPs don't have a sorting value attached to their respective row. Also doing a CTRL+F search for "data-sort-value" brings 128 results, and there are 650 total MPs. Clearly, the data-sort-value attribute is lacking. RONIN TALK 08:29, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Roc0ast3r Ah, thanks. I only looked at the top one or two, saw that they had the data-sort-value, and assumed consistency (why?!). So there's some tidying-up needed.

Just for info, for election enthusiasts, I've just found United Kingdom general election records which is an amazing compilation of useless but fascinating information about GEs, updated with a lot of 2024 content. Splendid stuff. PamD 11:03, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working through this adding the data-sort-key, but it's pretty tedious: any more help would be welcomed.Pam D 11:06, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All now done, thanks to input from @Roc0ast3r PamD 15:37, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But another time, people, please remember if contributing to a sortable table you need to consider sort values - there are a couple of ways to do it but it's much easier to do it when adding data than retrofitting. The first few entries were added with data-sort-value, and I suppose later editors were just keen to get the "me, me, I added them first" buzz, rather than continuing to create a well-crafted list. (Yes, one reason I stayed up till 5:30am was because I had a nice little draft prepared for the person I hoped would get elected locally, and I wanted to create that article myself, so I recognise the feeling). This is an encyclopedia not a news outlet, the results were available elsewhere, so it would have been better to slow down a little and continue to create a good table, following the model of those first few entries. PamD 15:45, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree. More diligence, less speed. doktorb _words^deeds 05:52, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regional articles created

I have created redirects for the regional lists at

No Swan So Fine (talk) 13:51, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New to parliament

Rather than the complexities of former seats, as this is a list of MPs, not seats, it would be useful to have a column indicating which of them are new to parliament (about 355 of them, I think). It could be a simple binary yes/no, or could be more elaborate by including year first elected to the commons, or year of start of continuous membership (the former better, a note needed to clarify which of the two is meant). PamD 08:06, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2024–present

There is a redirect at List of MPs for constituencies in Northern Ireland (2024–present) that redirects here. However, there is also an article at List of MPs for constituencies in Northern Ireland (2024-Present) that was created just a couple of days ago by Lukeweatherald. Should the article be renamed (per MOS:DATERANGE) or converted to a redirect? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:01, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@No Swan So Fine: ping for opinion. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:03, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article should be renamed to the lower case 'p' to maintain order with the previous forms. No Swan So Fine (talk) 16:28, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done (also with an en dash rather than a hyphen). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:05, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]