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Welwyn Hatfield (UK Parliament Constituency)
Welwyn Hatfield is a constituency in Hertfordshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, a Conservative who was previously the Secretary of State for Transport. History The seat was created for the February 1974 general election following the second periodic review of Westminster constituencies, initially as the County Constituency of Welwyn and Hatfield. It was formed from parts of the abolished constituency of Hertford. For the 1983 general election, the constituency was renamed in line with the recently created District of Welwyn Hatfield. ;Political history Despite its short history, the seat has seen two parties serve it, with two Labour periods of representation, during the longer part of the Labour Government 1974-1979 and during the first two terms of the Blair ministry. Other than this the seat has elected a Conservative as its MP. The 2005 maj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hertford (UK Parliament Constituency)
Hertford was the name of a parliamentary constituency in Hertfordshire, which elected Members of Parliament (MPs) from 1298 until 1974. History The Parliamentary Borough of Hertford was represented by two MPs in the House of Commons of England from 1298 to 1707, then of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and finally in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 onwards. Under the Boundaries Act of 1868, its representation was reduced to 1 MP. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 (which followed on from the Third Reform Act) abolished the Parliamentary Borough and it gave its name to one of four Divisions of the abolished three-member Parliamentary County of Hertfordshire, and was formally named as the Eastern or Hertford Division of Hertfordshire. As well from the Borough of Hertford, the enlarged constituency included the towns of Ware, Bishop's Stortford and Hoddesdon. It remained largely unchanged until 1955, but was radi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Past The Post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their vote for a candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins even if the top candidate gets less than 50%, which can happen when there are more than two popular candidates. As a winner-take-all method, FPTP often produces disproportional results (when electing members of an assembly, such as a parliament) in the sense that political parties do not get representation according to their share of the popular vote. This usually favours the largest party and parties with strong regional support to the detriment of smaller parties without a geographically concentrated base. Supporters of electoral reform are generally highly critical of FPTP because of this and point out other flaws, such as FPTP's vulnerabili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melanie Johnson
Melanie Jane Johnson (born 5 February 1955) is a Labour politician in the United Kingdom. Early life Johnson was born in Ipswich. She attended the Independent Clifton High School in Clifton, Bristol. Leaving Bristol for London, she studied at University College London, gaining a BA in Philosophy and Ancient Greek (1976). Following this she moved to Cambridge, continuing to study Philosophy at postgraduate level at King's College, Cambridge. From the age of 19 onwards she was an active member of the Labour Party and for over a decade was a County Councillor. From 1981 to 1988, she was Member Relations Officer for Cambridge Co-op, then Retail Administration Manager from 1988 to 1990. She was Assistant General Manager in Quality Assurance for Cambridge Family Health Service Authority from 1990 to 1992. Johnson was a schools inspector for Ofsted from 1993 to 1997. Parliamentary career In 1994 Johnson unsuccessfully stood for Labour in the Cambridgeshire seat at the European P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helene Hayman, Baroness Hayman
Helene Valerie Hayman, Baroness Hayman, (''née'' Middleweek; born 26 March 1949) is a British politician who was Lord Speaker of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. As a member of the Labour Party she was a Member of Parliament from 1974 to 1979, and became a life peer in 1996. Outside politics, she has been involved in health issues, serving on medical ethics committees and the governing bodies of bodies in the National Health Service and health charities. In 2006, she won the inaugural election for the newly created position of Lord Speaker. Early life, education and early career The daughter of Maurice (a dentist) and Maude Middleweek, Hayman attended Wolverhampton Girls' High School and read law at Newnham College, Cambridge, graduating in 1969; she was President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1969. She worked for Shelter from 1969 to 1971, and for the Social Services Department at the London Borough of Camden from 1971 to 74, when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Speaker
The Lord Speaker is the presiding officer, chairman and highest authority of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The office is analogous to the Speaker of the House of Commons: the Lord Speaker is elected by the members of the House of Lords and is expected to be politically impartial. Until July 2006, the role of presiding officer in the House of Lords was undertaken by the Lord Chancellor. Under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the position of the speaker of the House of Lords (as it is termed in the Act) became a separate office, allowing the position to be held by someone other than the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor continued to act as speaker of the House of Lords in an interim period after the Act was passed while the House of Lords considered new arrangements about its speakership. The current Lord Speaker is John McFall, Lord McFall of Alcluith. History In 2003, following the decision to disaggregate the roles performed by the Lord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Lords scrutinises bills that have been approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends bills from the Commons. While it is unable to prevent bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the more powerful House of Commons that is independent of the electoral process. While members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, high-ranking officials such as cabinet ministers are usually drawn from the Commons. The House of Lords does not control the term of the prime minister or of the government. Only the lower house may force ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Representative Peers
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right to sit in the House of Lords; they did not elect a limited group of representatives. All peers who were created after 1707 as Peers of Great Britain and after 1801 as Peers of the United Kingdom held the same right to sit in the House of Lords. Representative peers were introduced in 1707, when the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland were united into the Kingdom of Great Britain. At the time there were 168 English and 154 Scottish peers. The English peers feared that the House of Lords would be swamped by the Scottish element, and consequently the election of a small number of representative peers to represent Scotland was negotiated. A similar arrangement was adopted when the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life Peerage
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as age and citizenship. The legitimate children of a life peer are entitled to style themselves with the prefix "The Honourable", although they cannot inherit the peerage itself. Before 1887 The Crown, as ''fount of honour'', creates peerages of two types, being hereditary or for life. In the early days of the peerage, the Sovereign had the right to summon individuals to one Parliament without being bound to summon them again. Over time, it was established that once summoned, a peer would have to be summoned for the remainder of their life, and later, that the peer's heirs and successors would also be summoned, thereby firmly entrenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Lindsay, 29th Earl Of Crawford
Robert Alexander Lindsay, 29th Earl of Crawford and 12th Earl of Balcarres, (born 5 March 1927), styled Lord Balniel between 1940 and 1975, is a Scottish hereditary peer and Conservative politician who was a Member of Parliament from 1955 to 1974. The elder son of the 28th Earl of Crawford and 11th Earl of Balcarres, he succeeded to the family titles in 1975. Lord Crawford and Balcarres is the Premier Earl of Scotland and Chief of Clan Lindsay. Following the death of Lord Eden of Winton on 23 May 2020, Lindsay became the surviving former MP with the earliest date of first election, having first entered Parliament at the 1955 general election. Early life Lindsay was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. From 1945 to 1948, he served in the Grenadier Guards. He was honorary attaché at the British Embassy in Paris from 1950 to 1951, and then worked for the Conservative Research Department. Career Balniel was elected for the Conservative Party in Hertford ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Safe Seat
A safe seat is an electoral district (constituency) in a legislative body (e.g. Congress, Parliament, City Council) which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combination of both. In such seats, there is very little chance of a seat changing hands because of the political leanings of the electorate in the constituency concerned and/or the popularity of the incumbent member. The opposite (i.e. more competitive) type of seat is a marginal seat. The phrase tantamount to election is often used to describe winning the dominant party's nomination for a safe seat. Definition There is a spectrum between safe and marginal seats. Safe seats can still change hands in a landslide election, such as Enfield Southgate being lost by the Conservatives (and potential future party leader Michael Portillo) to Labour at the 1997 UK general election, whilst other seats may remain marginal despite large national swings, suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swing (politics)
An electoral swing analysis (or swing) shows the extent of change in voter support, typically from one election to another, expressed as a positive or negative percentage. A multi-party swing is an indicator of a change in the electorate's preference between candidates or parties, often between major parties in a two-party system. A swing can be calculated for the electorate as a whole, for a given electoral district or for a particular demographic. A swing is particularly useful for analysing change in voter support over time, or as a tool for predicting the outcome of elections in constituency-based systems. Swing is also usefully deployed when analysing the shift in voter intentions revealed by (political) opinion polls or to compare polls concisely which may rely on differing samples and on markedly different swings and therefore predict extraneous results. Calculation A swing is calculated by comparing the percentage of the vote in a particular election to the percentage of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Premiership Of Tony Blair
Tony Blair's term as the prime minister of the United Kingdom began on 2 May 1997 when he accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding John Major of the Conservative Party, and ended on 27 June 2007 upon his resignation. While serving as prime minister, Blair also served as the first lord of the treasury, minister for the civil service and leader of the Labour Party. As prime minister, Blair used the term "New Labour" to distinguish his pro- market policies from the more socialist policies which the party had espoused in the past. Many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy. In domestic government policy, Blair significantly increased public spending on healthcare and education while also introducing controversial market-based reforms in these areas. In addition, Blair's tenure saw the introduction of a minimum wage, tuition fees for higher education, constitutional reform such as devolution in Scotland and Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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