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Post by gwynthegriff on Jun 27, 2020 16:27:01 GMT
Whereas Didcot is, of course, well known having given its name to the piece of card removed when you have your railway ticket punched.  I never knew that (good piece of trivia). It seems like it's used for the round bits punched out of regular hole-punchers now as well. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Didcot is the Power Station, although I understand that's no longer there. It is also said that the confetti at Princess Margaret's wedding was made up of didcots collected by Inspectors of the Great Western Railway who had worked on the Royal Train. This is untrue. The GWR no longer existed by the time Margaret married and commercial confetti was widely available. I believe it is a garbled account based on the fact that Princess Elizabeth's confetti was sourced in that way, since the GWR still existed in 1947 and paper rationing was in place. johnloony may have further information given his encyclope encyclape deep knowledge of matters royal. Next I will discuss the derivation of the collective noun for baboons. P.S. I used to arrange the crewing of coal trains to Didcot PS. There were a lot. |
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Post by heslingtonian on Jun 27, 2020 16:34:41 GMT
Why Elstree but not Borehamwood? Borehamwood is much the larger and more significant settlement of the two Isn't Potters Bar the largest in the constituency? According to Wikipedia, Borehamwood has a population of 31k compared to 21k for Potter's Bar |
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Merseymike
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Post by Merseymike on Jun 27, 2020 16:37:46 GMT
Isn't Potters Bar the largest in the constituency? According to Wikipedia, Borehamwood has a population of 31k compared to 21k for Potter's Bar As long as Elstree is viewed as part of Borehamwood! I think this is why they often opt for non-specific names. |
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Post by therealriga on Jun 27, 2020 16:47:29 GMT
Largest two towns would turn Suffolk Coastal into "Felixstowe and Woodbridge", which would neither be meaningful nor popular! Felixstowe is the obvious and proper name. It is the one place most people know being one of our more important ports. Any other name is frankly daft. Constituencies should only be renamed to a single settlement in certain circumstances including, but not limited to: 1) The current name is some bland "Can't think of anything else" Compass Point - County name. 2) It's named after an obscure wapentake / hundred / geographical feature / 70s local government unit 3) there ain't no better name (cf Stone) Based on that, there is an obvious Suffolk example: Waveney should be Lowestoft. In the case of the constituency south of that however, if people can't work out that Suffolk Coastal covers, y'know, the coastal bit of Suffolk, then there's a good case for denying them the vote. |
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Post by lackeroftalent on Jun 27, 2020 17:02:20 GMT
Richmondshire only covers half the population of said Richmond (Yorks) constituency. But Richmondshire expressly includes more of the population of the constituency than the town of Richmond alone whilst avoiding the confusion of which Richmond we are referring to. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 27, 2020 17:48:45 GMT
Why Elstree but not Borehamwood? Borehamwood is much the larger and more significant settlement of the two Isn't Potters Bar the largest in the constituency? Potters Bar is the third largest town in the constituency after Elstree-Borehamwood and Bushey |
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Merseymike
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Post by Merseymike on Jun 27, 2020 17:56:57 GMT
Isn't Potters Bar the largest in the constituency? Potters Bar is the third largest town in the constituency after Elstree-Borehamwood and Bushey I can see why they ended up calling it Hertsmere!! |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2020 17:59:50 GMT
Staffordshire Moorlands should be Leek Though I agree with many of your other suggestions I think the present name is a good one, and IMO quite accurate descriptively. "Leek" was a perfectly serviceable name for this constituency for almost a century. "Staffordshire Moorlands" is a generic abomination and an unnecessary rename. |
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Richard Allen
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Post by Richard Allen on Jun 27, 2020 18:03:58 GMT
It was a riposte to those who claim that 'Skelmersdale would object to Ormskirk' and 'Bromyard would object to Leominster'. In other words I would prefer a single, succinct name which is clearly identifiable to people from outside the area as well as having some significance within it (I would have objected to the name 'Borehamwood' incidentally) Indeed whenever people say things like "Bromyard / Kington / Ledbury objected to the name Leominster" what they actually mean is that a handful of tossers wrote to the commission suggesting that a perfect good constituency name should be changed and the gormless pillock that was their MP supported their idiocy. |
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Post by johnloony on Jun 27, 2020 18:13:36 GMT
Didcot is a pretty important railway junction so I suspect many will have heard of it, certainly more than Wantage. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've never heard of Wantage outside of electoral contexts. Today I read about the Wantage Code of 997, by which Athelred the Unready updated and codified the system of law in order to accept and integrate local customs of the Danes as well as the Saxons and Angles. |
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Post by johnloony on Jun 27, 2020 18:14:38 GMT
Brecon & Radnorshire should be renamed Brecon & Radnor
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Post by finsobruce on Jun 27, 2020 18:23:21 GMT
Well I'm happy to debate it with you in some detail if you like, but it rather misses the point I was making anyway, which was that as somebody who comes originally from a part of that constituency which could not under any definition be described as 'Elstree', I would have had less objection to my home constituency bearing that name than I did to the name it has, which I regard as crap. It was a riposte to those who claim that 'Skelmersdale would object to Ormskirk' and 'Bromyard would object to Leominster'. In other words I would prefer a single, succinct name which is clearly identifiable to people from outside the area as well as having some significance within it (I would have objected to the name 'Borehamwood' incidentally) Why Elstree but not Borehamwood? Borehamwood is much the larger and more significant settlement of the two It's the only one that was a single by the Buggles:
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Post by owainsutton on Jun 27, 2020 18:26:37 GMT
Back to Suffolk:
I've just remembered how misleading "Bury St Edmunds" is as a constituency name. Nobody expects it to cover a broad rural area and the town of Stowmarket, all very different from the town in the name, and much of it in Mid Suffolk district. That's the danger of using the "largest town" argument without exception, and is the same problem as "Felixstowe" would be for Suffolk Coastal.
That said, it's not easy to think of an alternative. Maybe revive Hartismere, or even Eye (purely justified because history) for the awful "Central Suffolk and North Ipswich", freeing up "Mid Suffolk" for BSE? Or the "largest town" purists could be placated with "Framlingham" for CS&NI, which at least is geographically sort-of central and upmarket enough to avoid much griping.
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Post by finsobruce on Jun 27, 2020 18:27:28 GMT
It has a fine statue of Alfred the Great - for some tenuous reason.
Pull it down, he burnt those lovely cakes.
#FakeCakeNews. |
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Post by gwynthegriff on Jun 27, 2020 18:47:29 GMT
Brecon & Radnorshire should be renamed Brecon & Radnor Kirstyland JFTFY |
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cj
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Post by cj on Jun 27, 2020 19:02:34 GMT
As ever when these discussions happen, I think it proves how "one size fits all" really doesn't work. One town names work for, say, Stone. One town names don't work for, say, Suffolk Coastal. It's a good thing that Boundary Commissions can adapt to each individual situation. They sometimes make errors. They are allowed to make mistakes. People living in a constituency know the demographic/'cultural' centre of gravity, even if they don't like it, hence the favouring of more florid descriptions.
All the attempts of the local tories in the 'Flegg villages'/northern parishes* around here trying to get Great Yarmouth renamed to Norfolk Coastal, because they don't want to be associated with the grotty town, well tough, you're not the majority of the constituency, and stop being silly because you are far from the majority of Norfolk's coast.
*That's a little unfair, the folks in Gorleston really hate being lumped in with Great Yarmouth (your hate is our feeds us!).
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Post by European Lefty on Jun 27, 2020 19:28:31 GMT
Slightly tongue-in-cheek but not really a joke. Everybody seems to be under the impression that the constituency doesn't cover anything other than the town of Stroud, despite it being the least representative part of the area. Nobody is under that impression apart from a few morons. It's true that this category of people includes a large number of lazy political journalists who do the same with every constituency of this type, but that is a good reason not to employ morons as political journalists rather than a reason to adopt moronic constituency names Plus 80% of Stroud, about 60% of Cainscross and around 20% of Stonehouse |
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Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Jun 28, 2020 6:22:31 GMT
Pull it down, he burnt those lovely cakes.
#FakeCakeNews.
What they weren't lovely  |
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Post by greenhert on Jun 28, 2020 9:22:15 GMT
Back to Suffolk: I've just remembered how misleading "Bury St Edmunds" is as a constituency name. Nobody expects it to cover a broad rural area and the town of Stowmarket, all very different from the town in the name, and much of it in Mid Suffolk district. That's the danger of using the "largest town" argument without exception, and is the same problem as "Felixstowe" would be for Suffolk Coastal. That said, it's not easy to think of an alternative. Maybe revive Hartismere, or even Eye (purely justified because history) for the awful "Central Suffolk and North Ipswich", freeing up "Mid Suffolk" for BSE? Or the "largest town" purists could be placated with "Framlingham" for CS&NI, which at least is geographically sort-of central and upmarket enough to avoid much griping. Stowmarket will get its own seat at the next review due to how oversized the current Bury St Edmunds constituency is, so the Bury St Edmunds name can remain. |
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Post by islington on Jun 28, 2020 12:09:33 GMT
Back to Suffolk: I've just remembered how misleading "Bury St Edmunds" is as a constituency name. Nobody expects it to cover a broad rural area and the town of Stowmarket, all very different from the town in the name, and much of it in Mid Suffolk district. That's the danger of using the "largest town" argument without exception, and is the same problem as "Felixstowe" would be for Suffolk Coastal. That said, it's not easy to think of an alternative. Maybe revive Hartismere, or even Eye (purely justified because history) for the awful "Central Suffolk and North Ipswich", freeing up "Mid Suffolk" for BSE? Or the "largest town" purists could be placated with "Framlingham" for CS&NI, which at least is geographically sort-of central and upmarket enough to avoid much griping. Stowmarket will get its own seat at the next review due to how oversized the current Bury St Edmunds constituency is, so the Bury St Edmunds name can remain. Yes indeed, and I've just posted such a plan on the '2019 electorates' thread. It has the added bonus of restoring the honoured name of Eye. |
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