U.K 2005: Gazetter of Constituencies

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To help everyone (but especially confused non-brits) understand a little bit about each seat (and that's important 'cos the election is decided in each little individual contest) I've decided to do a sort of constituency gazetter... basically a list of seats with a few key words (eg: coalfield (I won't distinguish between active and closed down coalfields), agricultural, suburban, gentrifiying, polarised etc. etc) after them.

I'll also clarify just where some of the weird named seats actually are...

[Jake]

awesome

[Filuwaúrdjan]

North

Cumbria

Barrow-in-Furness: rurban, remote, nulcear/defense, gas
Carlisle: rurban, textiles, tourism
Copeland: rural, remote, nuclear, coalfield, tourism
Penrith & The Border: rural, agricultural, commuters, tourism
Westmorland & Lonsdale: rural, agricultural, tourism
Workington: rural, remote, coalfield, tourism

Northumberland

Berwick-upon-Tweed: rural, remote, agricultural, small coalfield, fishing, tourism
Blyth Valley: urban, coalfield
Hexham: rural, agricultural, commuters, tourism
Wansbeck: rural, coalfield

Tyneside

Blaydon: suburban (mixed), coalfield, polarised
Gateshead East & Washington West: suburban (working class), coalfield, new town
Jarrow: suburban (working class), coalfield, shipping, shipbuilding, Jarrow Crusade 1936
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central: urban/suburban (middle class), misnamed, yuppies, universities
Newcastle-upon-Tyne East & Wallsend: urban/suburban (working class), shipbuilding, coalfield
Newcastle-upon-Tyne North: suburban (mixed)
South Shields: suburban (working class), coalfield, shipping, ship building, only part of the U.K never to have had a Tory M.P since the beginning of semi-democracy in the 1830's.
Tyne Bridge: urban, inner city (Newcastle, Gateshead)
Tynemouth: suburban (mixed), polarised, resort, shipbuilding, shipping
Tyneside North: suburban (working class)/rural, coalfield, shipbuilding

County Durham

Bishop Auckland: rural, polarised, coalfield, agricultural, tourism
City of Durham: rurban: polarised, coalfield, university, yuppies, tourism
Darlington: urban/suburban, based on railways, traditionally had a lot of working class Tories (though no longer).
Durham North: rural, coalfield
Durham North West: rural, coalfield + old steel town, tourism
Easington: rurban, coalfield, new town
Hartlepool: urban/suburban (mixed), remote, steel, chemicals, shipping
Houghton & Washington East: rurban, coalfield, new town, cars
Sedgefield: rural, coalfield, new town
Sunderland North: urban/suburban (mixed, mostly working class), coalfield, shipbuilding, university (note: ex-tech)
Sunderland South: urban/suburban (working class), coalfield, shipbuilding

Teeside

Middlesbrough: urban, inner city, steel, chemicals, university (note: ex-tech)
Middlesbrough South & Cleveland East: suburban (mixed, mostly working class)/rural, resorts, orefield, tourism
Redcar: suburban (working class), steel, chemicals, shipping
Stockton North: urban/suburban (working class), chemicals
Stockton South: suburban (mixed, mostly middle class)

North West

North Lancashire

Blackpool North & Fleetwood: urban/suburban, resort + fishing port, tourism
Blackpool South: urban, resort, inner city, tourism
Fylde: rural/suburban (middle class), pensioners, tourism, agriculture
Lancaster & Wyre: rurban, polarised, pensioners, tourism, university
Morecambe & Lunesdale: rurban, resort, nuclear, shellfish, pensioners
Ribble Valley: rural, agriculture, tourism, commuters

East Lancashire

Blackburn: urban, textiles (used to be the textile capital of the world), large Asian population
Burnley: urban/suburban, textiles, racial tension (despite Asian population being small)
Heywood & Middleton: urban/suburban, textiles, white flight
Hyndburn: rurban, textiles
Pendle: rurban, textiles, large Pakistani population
Rochdale: urban/suburban, textiles, large Pakistani population, Liberal tradition, racial tension
Rossendale & Darwen: rurban, textiles, commuters

Manchester Metro

City and Inner Suburbs

[Alcon]

Wow - VERY cool. Could you perhaps indicate who currently holds/does well in each seat and their political leans if there's heavy vote-splitting?

[Frodo]

can we also have a map showing where all the regions, counties (or whatever the British equivalent is for either) and seats are?   

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I saw another way of doing this sorta thing a while ago. Divided constituencies into numbered groups IIRC... I'll be looking it up tomorrow.

If all goes to plan I should get a double map thingy done.

[Cubby]

Its quaint how Britain and Canada give their districts names instead of numbers, there's something 19th Century about it.

I'm going to be watching Falmouth & Camborne tomorrow, to see if Britain is any more tolerant today than it was towards Peter Tatchell in 1983.

For the record, CNN has a story about the election on its homepage, MSNBC has one buried inside its site, Rupert Murdoch's travesty of a "news" channel has nothing at all about it on its website.

[Hatman 🍁]

I think it's ridiculous and boring that the US does not name its districts.

[WMS]

I think it's ridiculous and boring that the US does not name its districts.

There have been threads about this before, and the Forum pretty much agrees. However, racial and political gerrymandering make it very hard to name some districts...