Chris from Brum
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Post by Chris from Brum on May 14, 2018 9:28:02 GMT
I tend to agree that naming a seat after two towns within in it is okay as long as they are both fairly significant settlements and when the seat has no obvious focal point. Thus I am quite happy with names such as Skipton and Ripon, although I would consider Skipton to be acceptable, but not okay with names like Shrewsbury and Atcham. In this case either Wednesbury or Tipton and Wednesbury would be fine. Shrewsbury and Atcham was the name of the former borough before Shropshire became a unitary authority, and the constituency retains those boundaries. West Bromwich West is a poor name because (a) no part of actual West Bromwich is within it, and (b) presuming the name derives from the former West Bromwich county borough, that was abolished in 1974. But a good name is hard to determine because the seat is a collection of small towns. Which is pretty much true of the whole of Sandwell borough anyway. |
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Richard Allen
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Post by Richard Allen on May 14, 2018 9:32:49 GMT
I tend to agree that naming a seat after two towns within in it is okay as long as they are both fairly significant settlements and when the seat has no obvious focal point. Thus I am quite happy with names such as Skipton and Ripon, although I would consider Skipton to be acceptable, but not okay with names like Shrewsbury and Atcham. In this case either Wednesbury or Tipton and Wednesbury would be fine. Shrewsbury and Atcham was the name of the former borough before Shropshire became a unitary authority, and the constituency retains those boundaries. I am aware of the reasons behind the name but it is still a bloody silly name. A constituency named Shrewsbury existed for nearly 700 years and there was absolutely no need to change it. |
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on May 14, 2018 12:22:40 GMT
Shrewsbury and Atcham was the name of the former borough before Shropshire became a unitary authority, and the constituency retains those boundaries. I am aware of the reasons behind the name but it is still a bloody silly name. A constituency named Shrewsbury existed for nearly 700 years and there was absolutely no need to change it. Locally the constituency is always referred to as just Shrewsbury - as in 'the Shrewsbury MP', 'the Shrewsbury seat' etc. |
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on May 14, 2018 13:33:39 GMT
I feel very strongly that constituencies should be described in terms of local authorities, as neatly and consistently as possible.
Disagree fundamentally and would prefer to completely ignore the local authority names many of which are witless nonsense imposed during a very gormless period of British politics.
I don't disagree - but the answer, surely, is to give the Authorities proper, sensible names and then base constituencies on those? If Leeds can be called Leeds, why isn't Kirklees Huddersfield?
I hate the idea that a place name can mean one thing in a local authority, a different thing in the title of a constituency, and sometimes a third thing altogether at ward level. (And any number of other things in peoples individual minds).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2018 16:56:19 GMT
Perhaps using tube stations as the basis for London constituency names isn't such a bad idea ... Cities of London and Westminster is going to be absurdly long in that case... Perhaps some would prefer the simpler Edgware Road North and Edgware Road South as the two are in different constituencies. |
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2018 16:58:36 GMT
And now I know people are just coming on this thread in order to wind me up. That seat contains three towns whose names have at some time been included in a constituency and the best you can do is Sandwell NW ? Easy enough to go for a double barreled name which I don't object to in certain circumstances, but actually plain Wednesbury would do fine I tend to agree that naming a seat after two towns within in it is okay as long as they are both fairly significant settlements and when the seat has no obvious focal point. Thus I am quite happy with names such as Skipton and Ripon, although I would consider Skipton to be acceptable, but not okay with names like Shrewsbury and Atcham. In this case either Wednesbury or Tipton and Wednesbury would be fine. This. It's not apparent why they use odd ones like Selby and Ainsty purely because that area is far from Selby, yet Folkestone and Hythe and Brentford and Isleworth make sense. Selby, Folkestone, and Brentford (and Chiswick) would be better in those cases. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 14, 2018 18:50:29 GMT
I tend to agree that naming a seat after two towns within in it is okay as long as they are both fairly significant settlements and when the seat has no obvious focal point. Thus I am quite happy with names such as Skipton and Ripon, although I would consider Skipton to be acceptable, but not okay with names like Shrewsbury and Atcham. In this case either Wednesbury or Tipton and Wednesbury would be fine. This. It's not apparent why they use odd ones like Selby and Ainsty purely because that area is far from Selby, yet Folkestone and Hythe and Brentford and Isleworth make sense. Selby, Folkestone, and Brentford (and Chiswick) would be better in those cases. It isn't that the area is far from the town of Selby, rather that it is outside the Selby district (in Harrogate district) so some recognition of that fact is provided by dragging up some other old Wapentake name. Not that I agree with it (I don't at all) but that is the 'logic'. As far as Folkestone & Hythe goes, until 1950 the seat was just called Hythe and just covered the urban areas of Hythe itself and the much larger Folkestone. In 1950 it was expanded to cover more or less the area it does now and the name was expanded though only to include the larger town which was already included in the seat. I suppose it may have seemed unreasonable to drop the name Hythe when that borough had given its name to a constituency for nearly 600 years. Brentford & Isleworth is a slightly odd one as the name excludes the two largest communities in the seat (Hounslow and Chiswick). I suppose the reasoning here was to give due recognition to the former boroughs in the area which were Feltham, Heston & Isleworth and Brentford & Chiswick which also corresponded to the three parliamentary constituencies (Though they were not coterminous as Feltham included part of the Heston & Isleworth borough). As Heston & Isleworth was the seat which was abolished and split between the other two, I suppose some recognition was given to each part within its new seat. Brentford would take precedence over Chiswick as it did in the name of the Brentford & Chiswick borough and because it was a more important town aas a former county town of Middlesex. Hounslow itself of course was split between the two seats as it is now (though now most of it is in B&I) but gives its name to the whole borough. Initially, in 1974, the new constituencies in London adopted the previous practice for London boroughs of including the borough name in the constituency, so the names were actually Hounslow, Brentford & Isleworth and Housnlow, Feltham & Heston (in the same style as you have Birmingham, Ladywood or Manchester Gorton). This was largely abandoned in 1983 but left some legacy in terms of names which are still with us today such as Ealing Southall and Enfield Southgate (which includes hardly anything of Enfield proper) |
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on May 14, 2018 19:50:41 GMT
I tend to agree that naming a seat after two towns within in it is okay as long as they are both fairly significant settlements and when the seat has no obvious focal point. Thus I am quite happy with names such as Skipton and Ripon, although I would consider Skipton to be acceptable, but not okay with names like Shrewsbury and Atcham. In this case either Wednesbury or Tipton and Wednesbury would be fine. This. It's not apparent why they use odd ones like Selby and Ainsty purely because that area is far from Selby, yet Folkestone and Hythe and Brentford and Isleworth make sense. Selby, Folkestone, and Brentford (and Chiswick) would be better in those cases.
It makes sense when the two places named are on opposite sides of the seat and there is an implication that the constituency covers all the hinterland between them.
It's a bit silly if both places are in one part of the seat, and ridiculous if that part is on the edge.
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YL
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Post by YL on May 16, 2018 7:52:34 GMT
It isn't that the area is far from the town of Selby, rather that it is outside the Selby district (in Harrogate district) so some recognition of that fact is provided by dragging up some other old Wapentake name. Not that I agree with it (I don't at all) but that is the 'logic'. It's really a bit silly as quite a lot of the Ainsty wapentake is now in the City of York and hence not in the constituency, and in fact a fair amount of the Harrogate district part of the constituency was actually in Claro wapentake, not Ainsty. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on May 16, 2018 9:08:15 GMT
It isn't that the area is far from the town of Selby, rather that it is outside the Selby district (in Harrogate district) so some recognition of that fact is provided by dragging up some other old Wapentake name. Not that I agree with it (I don't at all) but that is the 'logic'. It's really a bit silly as quite a lot of the Ainsty wapentake is now in the City of York and hence not in the constituency, and in fact a fair amount of the Harrogate district part of the constituency was actually in Claro wapentake, not Ainsty. If they had to refer to the Harrogate district part of the seat (which they didn't) they should have used Marston Moor instead as that is a place that most people have heard of. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2018 18:04:42 GMT
Another thing I don't understand is severe inconsistencies in names. A few examples: - The Scottish Parliament names are not consistent with Westminster names. The 'Dunfermline' Scottish Parliament Constituency contains both Dunfermline and West Fife, but does not include them both in the name, unlike the UK Parliament constituency. Whilst I think 'Dunfermline' is a better name, it makes little sense.
- Similar is the constituency of 'Greenock and Inverclyde.' It does not share the same name as its very similar UK counterpart, 'Inverclyde,' and is smaller, yet still gives the impression of both containing all of Inverclyde and containing Greenock as if it were a separate entity.
- Those in the discussion over the egregious 'Bury South' have made my point for me. It does not make sense for Bolton and Bury to have a different naming arrangement to Rochdale and Wigan (the latter of which I prefer.)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2018 18:10:29 GMT
Another thing I don't understand is severe inconsistencies in names. A few examples: - The Scottish Parliament names are not consistent with Westminster names. The 'Dunfermline' Scottish Parliament Constituency contains both Dunfermline and West Fife, but does not include them both in the name, unlike the UK Parliament constituency. Whilst I think 'Dunfermline' is a better name, it makes little sense.
- Similar is the constituency of 'Greenock and Inverclyde.' It does not share the same name as its very similar UK counterpart, 'Inverclyde,' and is smaller, yet still gives the impression of both containing all of Inverclyde and containing Greenock as if it were a separate entity.
- Those in the discussion over the egregious 'Bury South' have made my point for me. It does not make sense for Bolton and Bury to have a different naming arrangement to Rochdale and Wigan (the latter of which I prefer.)
I believe the Scottish Parliament constituency names were deliberately changed at the last review so they were not the same as Westminster constituencies, supposedly to avoid confusion. As a result we are now left with silly, meaningless names like "Almond Valley" instead of "Livingston" and overly long names like "Banffshire & Buchan Coast" instead of "Banff & Buchan". Some names remained the same, like East Lothian, the only alternative names I could think of for that constituency is "Haddington" or "Haddingtonshire", which are a little archaic. Names like "Aberdeenshire West" also irk me for some reason, I would far rather "West Aberdeenshire". |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2018 18:17:39 GMT
Another thing I don't understand is severe inconsistencies in names. A few examples: - The Scottish Parliament names are not consistent with Westminster names. The 'Dunfermline' Scottish Parliament Constituency contains both Dunfermline and West Fife, but does not include them both in the name, unlike the UK Parliament constituency. Whilst I think 'Dunfermline' is a better name, it makes little sense.
- Similar is the constituency of 'Greenock and Inverclyde.' It does not share the same name as its very similar UK counterpart, 'Inverclyde,' and is smaller, yet still gives the impression of both containing all of Inverclyde and containing Greenock as if it were a separate entity.
- Those in the discussion over the egregious 'Bury South' have made my point for me. It does not make sense for Bolton and Bury to have a different naming arrangement to Rochdale and Wigan (the latter of which I prefer.)
I believe the Scottish Parliament constituency names were deliberately changed at the last review so they were not the same as Westminster constituencies, supposedly to avoid confusion. As a result we are now left with silly, meaningless names like "Almond Valley" instead of "Livingston" and overly long names like "Banffshire & Buchan Coast" instead of "Banff & Buchan". Some names remained the same, like East Lothian, the only alternative names I could think of for that constituency is "Haddington" or "Haddingtonshire", which are a little archaic. Names like "Aberdeenshire West" also irk me for some reason, I would far rather "West Aberdeenshire". Much to Boogie's (be)(a)musement at the time, iirc, North East Fife was given the provisional name "Cupar and St Andrews" on the basis of not giving SP seats Westminster names. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2018 18:30:04 GMT
I believe the Scottish Parliament constituency names were deliberately changed at the last review so they were not the same as Westminster constituencies, supposedly to avoid confusion. As a result we are now left with silly, meaningless names like "Almond Valley" instead of "Livingston" and overly long names like "Banffshire & Buchan Coast" instead of "Banff & Buchan". Some names remained the same, like East Lothian, the only alternative names I could think of for that constituency is "Haddington" or "Haddingtonshire", which are a little archaic. Names like "Aberdeenshire West" also irk me for some reason, I would far rather "West Aberdeenshire". Much to Boogie's (be)(a)musement at the time, iirc, North East Fife was given the provisional name "Cupar and St Andrews" on the basis of not giving SP seats Westminster names. I quite like that name as I’m generally not a fan of compass point names, with some exceptions. I don’t see a problem with Westminster and Holyrood seats having the same names though. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2018 19:28:18 GMT
Much to Boogie's (be)(a)musement at the time, iirc, North East Fife was given the provisional name "Cupar and St Andrews" on the basis of not giving SP seats Westminster names. I quite like that name as I’m generally not a fan of compass point names, with some exceptions. I don’t see a problem with Westminster and Holyrood seats having the same names though. Completely agree. I personally find names such as Almond Valley unnecessarily confusing. Where there are exact names, such as East Lothian, it can still be seen that keeping the name has no effect. It is obvious that Tranent, North Berwick, Haddington etc. are in East Lothian and that Musselburgh is in Midlothian North and Musselburgh. It is also obvious that Dunblane is in the Clackmannanshire seat while Stirling, the Trossachs and Bannockburn are in Stirling. The only one that could be confusing is Moray, as part of Banffshire is in that seat; not all of Banffshire is in Banffshire and Buchan Coast, part of a different region altogether. Personally, I find the worst name to be 'Strathkelvin and Bearsden.' It just irks me and perhaps this is where a compass point name would be better, such as East Dunbartonshire. Part of the problem is that the neighbouring seat was configured as 'Clydebank and Milngavie' with half of Bearsden, rather than 'Clydebank and Bearsden' and the fact that those boundaries have been around since the SP's introduction does not convince me to want to keep it that way. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2018 19:41:48 GMT
I quite like that name as I’m generally not a fan of compass point names, with some exceptions. I don’t see a problem with Westminster and Holyrood seats having the same names though. Completely agree. I personally find names such as Almond Valley unnecessarily confusing. Where there are exact names, such as East Lothian, it can still be seen that keeping the name has no effect. It is obvious that Tranent, North Berwick, Haddington etc. are in East Lothian and that Musselburgh is in Midlothian North and Musselburgh. It is also obvious that Dunblane is in the Clackmannanshire seat while Stirling, the Trossachs and Bannockburn are in Stirling. The only one that could be confusing is Moray, as part of Banffshire is in that seat; not all of Banffshire is in Banffshire and Buchan Coast, part of a different region altogether. Personally, I find the worst name to be 'Strathkelvin and Bearsden.' It just irks me and perhaps this is where a compass point name would be better, such as East Dunbartonshire. Part of the problem is that the neighbouring seat was configured as 'Clydebank and Milngavie' with half of Bearsden, rather than 'Clydebank and Bearsden' and the fact that those boundaries have been around since the SP's introduction does not convince me to want to keep it that way. Yes, "Strathkelvin & Bearsden" and "Clydebank and Milngavie" are two irritating leftovers from the 1983 boundaries. The seat I had in mind as an exception to my aversion to compass point names is "East Renfrewshire"; although the name "Eastwood" is acceptable for the Holyrood constituency since it actually covers the old Eastwood district; as opposed to the Westminster and old Holyrood boundaries which include(d) Barrhead. |
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Harry Hayfield
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Post by Harry Hayfield on Jul 8, 2018 20:33:17 GMT
Oh, there have been some right doozies in the past. If I had to choose the worst of the worst in terms of name, then hands down it has to be the monstrosity of a name that has befallen what used to be known as Langbuargh namely Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. I mean, urgh, it's miles too long. Just keep it to what it is I say "Redcar and Cleveland Rural"
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 8, 2018 20:44:17 GMT
Oh, there have been some right doozies in the past. If I had to choose the worst of the worst in terms of name, then hands down it has to be the monstrosity of a name that has befallen what used to be known as Langbuargh namely Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. I mean, urgh, it's miles too long. Just keep it to what it is I say "Redcar and Cleveland Rural" Which would probably then supersede Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland as being the worst constituency name. The reason the seat is called what it is is because it does include the Southern part of Middlesbrough - it doesn't include Redcar, which you may be astonished to discover is actually in the Redcar constituency. Langbaurgh was a crap name but was replaced by something worse. Only you could come up with a name which contrives to be worse still |
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Jul 8, 2018 20:56:47 GMT
Oh, there have been some right doozies in the past. If I had to choose the worst of the worst in terms of name, then hands down it has to be the monstrosity of a name that has befallen what used to be known as Langbuargh namely Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. I mean, urgh, it's miles too long. Just keep it to what it is I say "Redcar and Cleveland Rural" Which would probably then supersede Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland as being the worst constituency name. The reason the seat is called what it is is because it does include the Southern part of Middlesbrough - it doesn't include Redcar, which you may be astonished to discover is actually in the Redcar constituency. Langbaurgh was a crap name but was replaced by something worse. Only you could come up with a name which contrives to be worse still I can think of one other person. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2018 21:06:59 GMT
Which would probably then supersede Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland as being the worst constituency name. The reason the seat is called what it is is because it does include the Southern part of Middlesbrough - it doesn't include Redcar, which you may be astonished to discover is actually in the Redcar constituency. Langbaurgh was a crap name but was replaced by something worse. Only you could come up with a name which contrives to be worse still I can think of one other person. *waves* |
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