Constituencies which aren't where they seem to be

[Khunanup]

Mar 12, 2018 21:47:38 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Mar 12, 2018 21:43:42 GMT therealriga said:

Compass point names are just dull. Agree on Broxtowe and Gedling. The first could regain the old name of Beeston (or &Stapleford if needed) and the second Arnold&Carlton.

All these ‘x & x’ names.

It’s like when I hear Peter Kyle refer to ‘Hove & Portslade’ or Zac Goldsmith refer to ‘Richmond Park & North Kingston’.

The use of ‘&’ in constituency names should be limited too.

So I’d go with Beeston and Carlton instead of Broxtowe and Gedling.

East Hampshire = Petersfield.

Romsey & Southampton North = Romsey.

Etc.

Er, perhaps not. Alton, also in the constituency, is actually slightly bigger than Petersfield. The constituency covers the vast majority of the East Hants district, contains the majority of geographical easternmost Hampshire and has two equally sized settlements in it so East Hampshire in this case makes perfect sense.

[Chris from Brum]

Mar 14, 2018 13:09:00 GMT Khunanup said:

Mar 12, 2018 21:47:38 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

All these ‘x & x’ names.

It’s like when I hear Peter Kyle refer to ‘Hove & Portslade’ or Zac Goldsmith refer to ‘Richmond Park & North Kingston’.

The use of ‘&’ in constituency names should be limited too.

So I’d go with Beeston and Carlton instead of Broxtowe and Gedling.

East Hampshire = Petersfield.

Romsey & Southampton North = Romsey.

Etc.

Er, perhaps not. Alton, also in the constituency, is actually slightly bigger than Petersfield. The constituency covers the vast majority of the East Hants district, contains the majority of geographical easternmost Hampshire and has two equally sized settlements in it so East Hampshire in this case makes perfect sense.

Perhaps Hampshire East rather than East Hampshire, to avoid confusion with the local government district.

[Pete Whitehead]

Portsmouth North and Purbrook would be an absolutely stupid name. Are you going to suggest Readinig east & Woodley, Reading West & Pangbourne, Luton South & Caddington? I suppose my constituency will be St Albans & Bedmond to acknowledge the small part of Three Rivers included. Unless the new boundaries go through and bring in a bit of Watford borough as well so it will be St Albans, Abbots Langley and Woodside

[East Anglian Lefty]

Thing is, the small second place added on doesn't really matter to anybody except the local residents. They can glorify in their recognition, and everybody else can just refer to the constituency by the first element.

[Deleted]

Mar 14, 2018 13:45:22 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Portsmouth North and Purbrook would be an absolutely stupid name. Are you going to suggest Readinig east & Woodley, Reading West & Pangbourne, Luton South & Caddington? I suppose my constituency will be St Albans & Bedmond to acknowledge the small part of Three Rivers included. Unless the new boundaries go through and bring in a bit of Watford borough as well so it will be St Albans, Abbots Langley and Woodside

My old seat was going to be renamed 'Milton Keynes, Newport Pagnell'...

[Deleted]

Mar 14, 2018 14:01:58 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Thing is, the small second place added on doesn't really matter to anybody except the local residents. They can glorify in their recognition, and everybody else can just refer to the constituency by the first element.

It isn't needed.

[Pete Whitehead]

Mar 14, 2018 15:04:24 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Mar 14, 2018 13:45:22 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Portsmouth North and Purbrook would be an absolutely stupid name. Are you going to suggest Readinig east & Woodley, Reading West & Pangbourne, Luton South & Caddington? I suppose my constituency will be St Albans & Bedmond to acknowledge the small part of Three Rivers included. Unless the new boundaries go through and bring in a bit of Watford borough as well so it will be St Albans, Abbots Langley and Woodside

My old seat was going to be renamed 'Milton Keynes, Newport Pagnell'...

That actually would have been fine with me, alongside Milton Keynes, Bletchley

[carlton43]

We should always strive for a one word title except in cities where compass points and district names make sense, especially if traditional and historic.

I don't think the vast majority of the electorate give a fig for the name. They want a vote. They want that vote to be meaningful and have the same weight as other votes cast. They want a sensible easy name.

So no Langbarugh or Mersey Banks. No great long cumbersome name. Inverness is fine. We all know where that is and that it must take in a bit of extra territory that does not need to be named for lots of obvious reasons.

No electors are hoping their modest little township will be added to the name. None. All this modern nonsense has been added by politicians, insiders, local authority wonks and sundry bloody idiots. the rest of us want
York
Rochester
Maidstone
Inverness
Ipswich
Crewe
Warwick
Lancaster

And NOTHING else....Dammit!

[jluk234]

Mar 14, 2018 16:28:07 GMT carlton43 said:

We should always strive for a one word title except in cities where compass points and district names make sense, especially if traditional and historic.

I don't think the vast majority of the electorate give a fig for the name. They want a vote. They want that vote to be meaningful and have the same weight as other votes cast. They want a sensible easy name.

So no Langbarugh or Mersey Banks. No great long cumbersome name. Inverness is fine. We all know where that is and that it must take in a bit of extra territory that does not need to be named for lots of obvious reasons.

No electors are hoping their modest little township will be added to the name. None. All this modern nonsense has been added by politicians, insiders, local authority wonks and sundry bloody idiots. the rest of us want
York
Rochester
Maidstone
Inverness
Ipswich
Crewe
Warwick
Lancaster

And NOTHING else....Dammit!

So you only want 8 seats, do you?

[Deleted]

Mar 14, 2018 16:28:07 GMT carlton43 said:

No electors are hoping their modest little township will be added to the name. None. All this modern nonsense has been added by politicians, insiders, local authority wonks and sundry bloody idiots. the rest of us want...

The vast majority of people wouldn't care of their constituency was renamed '#174', or 'Dorset's 6th' etc. You're grossly overestimating the amount of people that care.

Even fewer people care if their constituency is Crewe or Crewe and Nantwich, or Lancaster or Lancaster and Fleetwood.

[gwynthegriff]

Mar 14, 2018 17:22:37 GMT @nw12398 said:

Mar 14, 2018 16:28:07 GMT carlton43 said:

No electors are hoping their modest little township will be added to the name. None. All this modern nonsense has been added by politicians, insiders, local authority wonks and sundry bloody idiots. the rest of us want...

The vast majority of people wouldn't care of their constituency was renamed '#174', or 'Dorset's 6th' etc. You're grossly overestimating the amount of people that care.

Even fewer people care if their constituency is Crewe or Crewe and Nantwich, or Lancaster or Lancaster and Fleetwood.

I can assure you that the residents of rural Church Minshull were MOST put-out at the idea that their Eddisbury constituency might be renamed Winsford.

And any move to rename Crewe & Nantwich to simply Crewe would prompt pitchforks from the Dabbers*.



* Dabbers = Nantwich folk.

[gwynthegriff]

Mar 12, 2018 1:59:30 GMT johnloony said:

One of my crazy fantasy ideas is to have constituencies whose electorates are equalised to the closest possible extent by making each constituency a collection of the most suitable combination of wards, regardless of where those wards are or whether they are neighbouring, contiguous, adjoining, far-flung, or in a completely different borough or county.

It would discourage parochialism, which might be no bad thing.

And we might be spared those tedious PMQ contributions along the lines of "Would the PM join me in congratulating St Winifred's Day Nursery on achieving Grade 3 in the County Fun Netball Awards?"

[Deleted]

I also don't see the issue with Inverness given that that was the name used from 1918-1983 and nobody complained.

I'd like some hard evidence that anyone gives a toss if the name of their small town is omitted from the name of a seat.

[gwynthegriff]

Mar 12, 2018 23:22:53 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Mar 12, 2018 23:19:08 GMT Sandy said:

I agree about compass points but i'm not sure Edinburgh, Pentlands would really describe the current constituency all that well.  I actually prefer some of the 1983 names to the current ones, I agree about Eastwood but I much prefer Kincardine and Deeside to West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine for example.

Isn't it named for the Pentland hills?

Pendle is named after a hill also.

Eddisbury is also a hill.

(Or what passes for a hill in that part of the Cheshire Plain.)

[Deleted]

They really started to make a mess of things in 1983.

When names like Eastwood started to be used (sounds like a nice little commuter town to the south of Glasgow doesn't it? No such place!)

Sefton Central is another horrendous example.

Thankfully names like Medway are no longer used.

Pendle should be called Nelson.

Hyndburn should be called Accrington.

I think we should go back to the pre-1983 names for most seats if possible.

[Deleted]

I want the 1983 election result and the pre-1983 boundaries, I'd be happy with both!

[islington]

Mar 14, 2018 18:14:44 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

They really started to make a mess of things in 1983.

When names like Eastwood started to be used (sounds like a nice little commuter town to the south of Glasgow doesn't it? No such place!)

Sefton Central is another horrendous example.

Thankfully names like Medway are no longer used.

Pendle should be called Nelson.

Hyndburn should be called Accrington.

I think we should go back to the pre-1983 names for most seats if possible.

I used to be of this view but as I got more interested in the evolution of Parliamentary constituencies, I came to the sad realization that needlessly obscure names have been around much longer than I thought.

The 1885 redistribution, which gave us single-member constituencies almost everywhere and the first really modern map, included such gems as

• Barkston Ash
• Buckrose
• Eddisbury
• Eifion
• Medway
• Osgoldcross
  
• Rushcliffe
  
• St Augustine's
• Wansbeck

Some of these, such as Rushcliffe, have become familiar thanks to many years of use, but the fact remains that in itself it's an obscure name and back in 1885 it must have had people puzzling over its whereabouts.

The 1885 review also created two entirely separate constituencies called Newport, neither of which had anything to do with yet a third constituency of the same name that was abolished at the same review.

This review was also the first to divide boroughs, and I'm afraid that in doing so it committed a further offence in the eyes of many on here (myself included) by mixing the 'area' and 'compass-point' styles in the same borough, for instance in Birmingham, Finsbury, Lambeth, Camberwell and probably others.

So, while I have much sympathy with Conservativeestimate's post, unfortunately I have to point out that obscure or otherwise unsuitable constituency names have a much longer pedigree than he implies.

[Deleted]

Mar 14, 2018 18:04:46 GMT gwynthegriff said:

Mar 14, 2018 17:22:37 GMT @nw12398 said:

The vast majority of people wouldn't care of their constituency was renamed '#174', or 'Dorset's 6th' etc. You're grossly overestimating the amount of people that care.

Even fewer people care if their constituency is Crewe or Crewe and Nantwich, or Lancaster or Lancaster and Fleetwood.

I can assure you that the residents of rural Church Minshull were MOST put-out at the idea that their Eddisbury constituency might be renamed Winsford.

Sure, a few people may have raised their voices about it, but you don't really hear the views of those who couldn't care less - of which I imagine there are quite a few.

Perhaps even a majority of people, when asked on the street, might say that they prefer the current name. But very few will care enough to sign a petition/vote differently etc. over it.

[gwynthegriff]

Mar 14, 2018 19:05:15 GMT islington said:

Mar 14, 2018 18:14:44 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

They really started to make a mess of things in 1983.

When names like Eastwood started to be used (sounds like a nice little commuter town to the south of Glasgow doesn't it? No such place!)

Sefton Central is another horrendous example.

Thankfully names like Medway are no longer used.

Pendle should be called Nelson.

Hyndburn should be called Accrington.

I think we should go back to the pre-1983 names for most seats if possible.

I used to be of this view but as I got more interested in the evolution of Parliamentary constituencies, I came to the sad realization that needlessly obscure names have been around much longer than I thought.

The 1885 redistribution, which gave us single-member constituencies almost everywhere and the first really modern map, included such gems as

• Barkston Ash
• Buckrose
• Eddisbury
• Eifion
• Medway
• Osgoldcross
  
• Rushcliffe
  
• St Augustine's
• Wansbeck

Some of these, such as Rushcliffe, have become familiar thanks to many years of use, but the fact remains that in itself it's an obscure name and back in 1885 it must have had people puzzling over its whereabouts.

The 1885 review also created two entirely separate constituencies called Newport, neither of which had anything to do with yet a third constituency of the same name that was abolished at the same review.

This review was also the first to divide boroughs, and I'm afraid that in doing so it committed a further offence in the eyes of many on here (myself included) by mixing the 'area' and 'compass-point' styles in the same borough, for instance in Birmingham, Finsbury, Lambeth, Camberwell and probably others.

So, while I have much sympathy with Conservativeestimate's post, unfortunately I have to point out that obscure or otherwise unsuitable constituency names have a much longer pedigree than he implies.

Eifion seems a perfect name for the constituency involved.

[carlton43]

Mar 14, 2018 16:40:37 GMT jluk234 said:

Mar 14, 2018 16:28:07 GMT carlton43 said:

We should always strive for a one word title except in cities where compass points and district names make sense, especially if traditional and historic.

I don't think the vast majority of the electorate give a fig for the name. They want a vote. They want that vote to be meaningful and have the same weight as other votes cast. They want a sensible easy name.

So no Langbarugh or Mersey Banks. No great long cumbersome name. Inverness is fine. We all know where that is and that it must take in a bit of extra territory that does not need to be named for lots of obvious reasons.

No electors are hoping their modest little township will be added to the name. None. All this modern nonsense has been added by politicians, insiders, local authority wonks and sundry bloody idiots. the rest of us want
York
Rochester
Maidstone
Inverness
Ipswich
Crewe
Warwick
Lancaster

And NOTHING else....Dammit!

So you only want 8 seats, do you?

No.  Probably not.  That '8-Seat-Solution' looks a tad tight for election night.  Let's revert to 600-seats but with nice short/traditional/historic/meaningful/identifiable names please.