Post by martinwhelton on Apr 4, 2020 22:45:52 GMT
Mar 29, 2020 10:29:47 GMT @barnabymarder said:
Let's start with my own constituency.Funnily enough I remember as a young 18-year-old going along to the boundary inquiry in 1993 and arguing the seat should be Richmond and North Kingston. I remember meeting Robert Waller there who put forward the case for the seat to be named Richmond Park(which in hindsight was the correct name).
RICHMOND PARK
This is a rather awkwardly-drawn seat for reasons of electoral equality, which first came into being for the 1997 general election, and has been changed very little since. It covers all of the borough of Richmond-upon-Thames on the "Surrey" side of the river, and several wards of Kingston-upon-Thames north of the railway line which runs from Kingston to New Malden and beyond. Since the geographical centrepiece of the constituency is the largest park in Greater London, Richmond Park, it was felt to be a good, concise name for the constituency, although since all of the park is now in Richmond-upon-Thames it does mean that there is no reference to Kingston in the constituency title - which causes some including the local Conservatives to refer to it sometimes as "Richmond Park and North Kingston".
It is one of the most affluent seats even in this mostly affluent corner of London, and some areas, especially Coombe with its huge mansions and private roads, are superwealthy. Such areas of relative deprivation that exist - found perhaps most in Mortlake and Ham - are limited. The constituency includes a large chunk of the largest Korean community in Europe, in New Malden (anecdotally said to be Lib Dem-inclined for the most part), and also significant Swedish and German populations because of the existence of German and Swedish schools. There are some major tourist sites in the constituency, particularly Kew Gardens with its small royal palace, but also the Richmond riverside and (less often visited) what's left of Richmond Palace, birthplace of Elizabeth I. Many people will also watch part of the constituency on the television when the annual University Boat Race takes place - partially indicative that super-affluent Barnes, which the race passes in its middle section, is pretty close to central London. For many years the constituency was noted for a particular preponderance of actors, broadcasters and other well-known figures in the arts, and since the early 1970s opposition to the Conservatives has come principally from the Liberals and now Liberal Democrats. The Liberals came very close to winning the old Richmond and Barnes seat in 1983, but despite the addition of overwhelmingly Conservative Coombe and Tory-leaning, suburban Tudor when the seat became Richmond Park (and the loss of Lib Dem-inclined East Twickenham which had controversially been part of Richmond and Barnes), the Lib Dems won in the calamitous Tory year of 1997. The constituency seems to have demographically changed in recent times, as those in the arts have to some extent been superceded by wealthy workers in the financial and legal sectors, and the Tories having retaken the seat in 2010 (despite Nick Clegg's popularity at that time) marched to a 24,000 majority in 2015 - only to see it collapse again as the issue of Europe destroyed it, as even some of these wealthy workers have at least temporarily deserted the Conservatives over Europe. For the telegenic, green-tinged Tory MP, Zac Goldsmith, made the cardinal error of strongly supporting Leave in a constituency where over 70% opted for Remain. It was almost entirely on this issue that he lost to the Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney in the 2019 general election, and her majority was not a small one; what this educated and unusual electorate makes of party politics in the post-Brexit world will determine how this seat behaves in future, if it remains in a recognisable state after boundary changes.
