Comments on: Oxford East

By: Dalek

Dalek — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:41:05 +0000

I think that this seat will end up being called Oxford South.

Odd that Abingdon includes the North of the City when it is SW of the city?

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:11:23 +0000

As always the Boundary Commission leaves us with more questions than there are possible answers

By: akmd

akmd — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:58:49 +0000

Yes, that probably was unwise of me. But that begs the question why it’s called Oxford when the old name would still be accurate?

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:49:59 +0000

Why do you call it a unified Oxford seat when less of Oxford is contained within it than previously?

By: akmd

akmd — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:41:12 +0000

This seat becomes the new Oxford seat with the only change being Carfax moving into Abingdon and Oxford North. That helps boost the LDs in the latter seat while also helping Labour in this unified Oxford seat. I imagine the majority will increase considerably at the next election.

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 11:28:31 +0000

>>I can’t tell whether you’re praising the Labour campaign or decrying it.<<

I was absolutely praising it for reconnecting with people on a grassroots level. By 'monstrous' I was more in awe of the numbers of activists mobilised, the amount of work and the level of organisation.

I was praising both the style and scale of their campaigning.

By: Frederic Stansfield

Frederic Stansfield — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:47:00 +0000

An awful lot of results over the years have depended upon whether small cities/large towns have had one seat for the centre, with the suburbs spilling over into nearby country seats, or whether they have had two seats with a boundary cutting across the city/town centre and voter numbers brought up where necessary by including suburbs. Apart from Oxford and Norwich, one could think of Preston, York, Colchester (contrasted with Chelmsford) and quite a few others. In some years, e.g. 1964, 1974, the whole result of the General Election could been significantly altered by a few boundary changes in such seats.

In my view these problems become even worse with AV in single member seats. The best practical solution is STV in consistently sized multi-member seats (with no top-up lists), but even then the number of members per seat and the boundaries can have important effects on the outcome.

By: Harry Porter

Harry Porter — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:43:09 +0000

Thanks to RR for his answer – as I have said on another thread, I am annoyed that the 1983 boundary changes act is not online as far as I can see, although I see it has been used as a reference in several Wikipedia constituency articles, therefore I have NOT had to ask about those particular seats on here!! (or if I have it was before I discovered the wards were listed on Wikipedia…)

By: RR

RR — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:37:16 +0000

They were:

Oxford City wards: Marston, Headington, Quarry, Wood Farm, St. Clements, East, Temple Cowley, Iffley, Blackbird Leys.

South Oxfordshire DC Wards: Old Marston, Risinghurst and Littlemore (NOTE these areas were transferred to Oxford City Council in 1991 except the Hosrpath area of Risinghurst ward which was given its own ward on SODC…but it remained in Oxford East till 1997).

In 1997 South ward came in from OXWAB, and the Hospath ward (formerly part of Risinghurst) left for Henley. Both changes helped Labour.

By: Robberbutton

Robberbutton — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:45:45 +0000

I’m going to second Barnaby