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Post by Devil Wincarnate on May 11, 2016 8:04:23 GMT
I'm less interested in forcing names in than preservation of an old, useful name for the political division.
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Post by islington on Jul 16, 2016 12:49:40 GMT
This is to pick up on the seat-naming discussion that has been taking place on the Scotland thread.
For city seats, I personally don't have a preference between the use of districts of the city and the use of compass-points. Both approaches have a long history and I'm happy to be guided by tradition. I think a 'Central' seat is acceptable in either format, but apart from this I feel that the two styles ought not to be mixed in the same city.
Someone on the Scotland thread cited the example, a revision or two ago, of the seat of 'Newcastle upon Tyne Central', which did not contain the oldest parts of Newcastle fronting the river Tyne. And farther back, there was once a 'Wandsworth Central' seat that did not contain Wandsworth town centre. I don't think these names were appropriate: for my money, where 'Central' is used for an urban seat, it ought to be interpreted as meaning not that it necessarily lies in the geographical middle of the built-up area (or of a local government unit named after it), but that it contains the original heart of the town or city in question - what Americans call the 'downtown'.
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Post by carlton43 on Jul 16, 2016 14:41:31 GMT
I think many of you are being far too prissy and detail fixated. Wandsworth Central being the middle-ish of Wandsworth is fine by me. I see the others being east, north or west of a central core based somewhere fairly central. I don't see that it matters what part of that centre that it covers.
I am happy with nice short names like Cheadle. A nice old name and we all know roughly where that is and that is good enough. Locals know what it actually covers if it matters to them; but I doubt that it does. I don't think electors care at all about the name or the coverage. All that concerns them it that they have a vote and that it is a fair vote 'weighing' the same as a vote in another constituency, and that the names makes sense and is not stupid like Gravesham or Langbarugh.
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,726
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Post by Adrian on Jul 16, 2016 14:43:59 GMT
I think there's something to be said for long and short forms of names. Something like this has already existed, for example "Ealing, Southgate" meant the Southgate constituency in the Borough of Ealing, and it was okay, I think, to call the seat "Southgate" in general usage. Now that there are more cross-border seats, we can perhaps think of e.g. "Blackley and Broughton" as short for "Manchester, Blackley and Salford, Broughton". The consequence of these thoughts is that (a) seats shouldn't have confusable names (e.g. no "Sheffield, Handsworth" because there's a Handsworth in Birmingham) and (b) compass-point names have the disadvantage that a short form isn't possible.
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Post by carlton43 on Jul 16, 2016 15:01:32 GMT
No one is going to confuse a Sheffield seat with one Birmingham
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jul 16, 2016 15:27:16 GMT
There were lots of division names in the past which could easily be confused - there was of course a Birmingham Handsworth division. Both Liverpool and Manchester had divisions called 'Exchange'. Manchester had a Clayton division which is also the name of part of Bradford. What about Beeston borough constituency and confusion with the Beeston suburb of Leeds? What about Leeds itself and confusion with the village in Kent?
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Post by islington on Jul 16, 2016 15:36:10 GMT
I think there's something to be said for long and short forms of names. Something like this has already existed, for example "Ealing, Southgate" meant the Southgate constituency in the Borough of Ealing, and it was okay, I think, to call the seat "Southgate" in general usage. Now that there are more cross-border seats, we can perhaps think of e.g. "Blackley and Broughton" as short for "Manchester, Blackley and Salford, Broughton". The consequence of these thoughts is that (a) seats shouldn't have confusable names (e.g. no "Sheffield, Handsworth" because there's a Handsworth in Birmingham) and (b) compass-point names have the disadvantage that a short form isn't possible. Adrian: Enfield Southgate, of course, not Ealing. Compass-point names are reasonably succinct in the first place (Bolton West, &c) so I don't see it as a problem. I agree with the more general point that names will tend to get abbreviated in everyday usage and there's nothing wrong with this so long as it doesn't lead to ambiguity. Thus, Birmingham Edgbaston can readily be called simply 'Edgbaston' because (i) there's no other seat with this name and (ii) the name of Edgbaston is fairly well known (because of the cricket ground) so anyone would know we were talking about a Birmingham seat. But this doesn't work in all cases: Brighton Pavilion, for instance, is usually referred to in full, and if we have a Plymouth Sutton seat (as I am proposing) then the full name would have to be used because 'Sutton' by itself is insufficiently distinguished from Sutton & Cheam and Sutton Coldfield. A related issue arises with names of the 'x and y' type. It's very common to have names like this and there's nothing inherently wrong with the practice (although names consisting of a single element are preferable where possible). But in creating a two-element name, one should bear in mind that the second element is likely to be dropped in familiar usage - perhaps not in all cases (e.g. I've never heard 'Orkney and Shetland' given other than in full) but probably in most. So it's important to make sure that the first element is something that makes sense by itself and unambiguously identifies the seat.
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Dalek
Conservative
Aldershot and Glasgow Kelvingrove
Posts: 110
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Post by Dalek on Jul 27, 2016 12:24:31 GMT
1. Get rid of the distinction in names of county constituencies and borough constituencies. Journalists, politicians and psephologists almost always refer to "Cornwall North" anyway, not "North Cornwall". The compass point should be after the name, in all cases. Totally agree, almost no one gets the name of my home constituency correct, South Swindon - it's nearly always referred to as Swindon South. Does have some advantages as it's a county seat one can spend more & the difference in appointments The only thing I would disagree with is where there is a unitary authority called say East Renfrewshire. Some sites have referred to it as Renfrewshire East but it is not the Eastern division of Renfrewshire Council. Renfrewshire Council is separate altogether and is divided North and South. What is Renfrewshire Council is really Mid Renfrewshire because historical West Renfrewshire is now Inverclyde Council. There are also long established councils that have been single entities historically like East Lothian and Midlothian (note the single name)? They have always been separate execpt during the existence of Lothian Region between 1974 and 1995/6. By this logic they would become Lothian East and Lothian Mid which would be silly. I think East Renfrewshire should be considered in the same way as East Lothian and Midlothian.
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Dalek
Conservative
Aldershot and Glasgow Kelvingrove
Posts: 110
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Post by Dalek on Jul 27, 2016 12:41:58 GMT
There is no consistency in naming current London constituencies. Some are structured on pre-1965 boroughs like Holborn & St Pancras (not Camden South), Islington South & Finsbury (not Islington South), Hackney North & Stoke Newington (not Hackney North) and Ilford North (not Redbridge North). Some are structured on post-1965 boroughs like Croydon South (not Coulsden & Purley), Brent North (not Wembley) and Westminster North (not Paddington & St Marylebone North). Some are structured on general areas within that are neither historical or current boroughs such as Streatham, Tooting, Putney and Richmond Park. We have post-1965 borough names like Brent North and Westminster North that would be Wembley and Paddington on the basis that other constituencies are named. We also have constituencies still named after the pre-1965 London boroughs such as Holborn & St Pancras that could be called Camden South. The one that makes no sense to me is Ilford North. This was the northern division of the old Ilford Borough but does not include Ilford. As the old Ilford borough became Redbridge by annexing Woodford should Ilford North not now be Redbridge North? Read more: vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/6894/2018-review-greater-london#ixzz4FbvEFLbc
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Dalek
Conservative
Aldershot and Glasgow Kelvingrove
Posts: 110
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Post by Dalek on Jul 27, 2016 13:03:04 GMT
In the 1983 review the new Tayside Region was divided up as -
Angus East Dundee East Dundee West Perth & Kinross Tayside North
There seems to be a different logic applied to the three constituencies outside Dundee.
Angus East (under the other logics would be Angus or Tayside East). Perth & Kinross (under the other logic would be Tayside South). Tayside North (under the other logic would be Pitlochry & Forfar).
No consistency however, as one is named as a division of a Region, one is names after the towns of Perth and Kinross (not the council) and the third is as a division of a District council.
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Jul 30, 2016 8:00:12 GMT
It only matters if two or more constituencies are affected. Newport has two seats so it must be the one in Wales from size. There is only one Broughton used and best in all cases of Broughton to use another name as no one knows where any of them are. The real one's clearly near Wick. The real Wick, the one between the real Llantwit and the real Penybont. ;-) Maybe we need the American system of having the Post Office veto ambiguous placenames. That's exactly the one I think of. I'd never heard of the North Wales one until today. Wheb I was very young, I lived in Wick. There was a local debate about how to pronounce Broughton: was it Broar-ton, Brow-ton or Bruff-ton? I've heard all three used and am reliably informed that it's periodically discussed in the Plough and Harrow.
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Jul 30, 2016 8:17:20 GMT
I'd add that cities with few enough divisions to use the Cityname Compasspoint style should do so, rather than Cityname Randomsuburb. Constituencies in Inner London should preferably be renamed to start with the word London. Plymouth Moor View being one such offender. Made worse by the fact that there isn't a suburb called Moor View and that you can only see the moor from a tiny part of the seat.
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,726
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Post by Adrian on Jul 30, 2016 9:22:07 GMT
What about Leeds itself and confusion with the village in Kent? lol
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Jul 30, 2016 10:07:44 GMT
There were lots of division names in the past which could easily be confused - there was of course a Birmingham Handsworth division. Both Liverpool and Manchester had divisions called 'Exchange'. Manchester had a Clayton division which is also the name of part of Bradford. What about Beeston borough constituency and confusion with the Beeston suburb of Leeds? What about Leeds itself and confusion with the village in Kent? Or Torquay and Turkey.
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Post by carlton43 on Jul 30, 2016 14:31:20 GMT
There were lots of division names in the past which could easily be confused - there was of course a Birmingham Handsworth division. Both Liverpool and Manchester had divisions called 'Exchange'. Manchester had a Clayton division which is also the name of part of Bradford. What about Beeston borough constituency and confusion with the Beeston suburb of Leeds? What about Leeds itself and confusion with the village in Kent? Or Torquay and Turkey. Or Tore Quay?
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Post by gwynthegriff on Jul 30, 2016 19:10:58 GMT
I think there's something to be said for long and short forms of names. Something like this has already existed, for example "Ealing, Southgate" meant the Southgate constituency in the Borough of Ealing, and it was okay, I think, to call the seat "Southgate" in general usage. Now that there are more cross-border seats, we can perhaps think of e.g. "Blackley and Broughton" as short for "Manchester, Blackley and Salford, Broughton". The consequence of these thoughts is that (a) seats shouldn't have confusable names (e.g. no "Sheffield, Handsworth" because there's a Handsworth in Birmingham) and (b) compass-point names have the disadvantage that a short form isn't possible. Spoilsport! I demand Sheffield constituencies named Handsworth, Blackburn, Richmond ... Intake and Halfway!
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Post by David Ashforth on Jul 30, 2016 20:01:06 GMT
I think there's something to be said for long and short forms of names. Something like this has already existed, for example "Ealing, Southgate" meant the Southgate constituency in the Borough of Ealing, and it was okay, I think, to call the seat "Southgate" in general usage. Now that there are more cross-border seats, we can perhaps think of e.g. "Blackley and Broughton" as short for "Manchester, Blackley and Salford, Broughton". The consequence of these thoughts is that (a) seats shouldn't have confusable names (e.g. no "Sheffield, Handsworth" because there's a Handsworth in Birmingham) and (b) compass-point names have the disadvantage that a short form isn't possible. Spoilsport! I demand Sheffield constituencies named Handsworth, Blackburn, Richmond ... Intake and Halfway! And Chapeltown.
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Jul 30, 2016 20:11:45 GMT
Sheffield Philadelphia or Mosborough Townships would both be great names.
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Post by David Ashforth on Jul 30, 2016 20:19:51 GMT
Sheffield Philadelphia or Mosborough Townships would both be great names. I've already posted this in the Yorkshire & The Humber thread but, if we could have a seat that stretched from Rotherham to Worksop we could have a seat called "Wales & Rhodesia"
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2016 20:25:59 GMT
Repeating myself a bit here. Constituency names should be free and easy. Almost without restriction. Go mad. No one part of the country should have a policy on parliamentary constituency naming which dictates the rules elsewhere. Consistency should always be a framing device not the entire cogs and wheels.
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