Saturday 10 April 2010

North and South Thanet constituency boundary changes

The map above shows the constituency boundaries at the last general election.
The map above shows the new constituency boundaries that will be used for the forthcoming general election.

Sorry the maps are a bit fuzzy they were the best I could find, if anyone comes across anything clearer could they send them to me and I will replace these ones.

I know this is a bit of an odd post, but as one of the youf of today asked me what the boundary changes were and I realised that I didn’t know I thought others could be in the same boat.

A major point with these boundary changes is that had they happened before the last general election, and had people voted the same way as they did then, both Thanet constituencies would have returned Conservatives.

As far as thoughts on the general election go having heard most of the major players warning us that if their opposition is elected we are in for an economic disaster I have to say this is an occasion where I find myself beginning to believe politicians.

None of them really seem to have much to say about what worries so many of us which is that our towns are becoming much more unpleasant to live in, from dangerous dogs to groups of rowdy drunks.

At the moment all of the latest polls are predicting a Conservative majority over Labour but none are predicting an outright majority see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm

Here is the link to this mornings pictures of Ramsgate http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410/id10.htm

18 comments:

  1. Cant find a decent one either so sent e-mail to Laura Sandys to see if she has one

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  2. If you live in Minster, Manston or Sholden you are now in N. Thanet, not S.Thanet.

    If you live in the either of the two Cliftonville Wards, East and West, you are now S. Thanet.

    Dane Valley, Salmestone, Central Margate etc. wards are still N. Thanet. Mind you, that assumes folk know which ward they're in.

    Basically if you are represented by Cllrs. Hart, Aldred, Clark, Wise, Ezekiel or B. Sullivan you are now S. Thanet.

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  3. Got email back two in fact from Laura and nothing better than you have Michael. I tried the boundaries commission ,OS etc and came up blank well nothing better. Sorry cant help.

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  4. How half of Cliftonville can be in Thanet North amazes me. Whatever the case can't see anything other than a "blue" Thanet on May 7th.

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  5. The positioning of the Laura Sandys board outside Hornby Hobbies is curious, since Salmestone is North Thanet. Just throwing it out there. Don, try the BBC election website.

    The biggest concern is that of a hung Parliament. The markets have the jitters at the thought of one due to the economic uncertainty that would happen.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Are movies only advertised outside cinemas? Horny Hobbies is in a key position with much passing traffic from various parts of Thanet, so it makes perfect sense for it to be there.

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  8. Oops, I meant "Hornby"! A Freudian slip... ; )

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  9. As I've posted elsewhere it's just not the done thing to tread on someone else's patch as S. Thanet Tories have done. Roger Gale doesn't stick his billboards in S. Thanet so Laura Sandys shouldn't advertise in N. Thanet whether or not it's on a bus route.
    The fact the landowner is a supporter, I assume, is no reason to get things wrong but whatever the logic, the billboards count towards her election expenses.

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  10. Thanks for trying Don I was very surprised that I couldn’t find anything better, the whole thing has a worked out on the back of a fag packet appearance.

    Thanks for the clarification 7.01, I hadn’t realised how large the changes are.

    Jeremy it certainly looks that way.

    James the only map I could find on the BBC election website is even worse than the ones I have published.

    I suppose the main thing that the two major parties seem to have missed is that a great may people would like parliamentary reforms and would like a referendum on the subject.

    Questions like; do you want proportional representation; an elected prime minister come to mind here?

    Made me laugh Peter.

    9.25 The unspoken etiquette of electioneering sounds like a pretty peculiar thing to me, I would be surprised if they hadn’t discussed it first though.

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  11. I mailed Steve Ladyman and asked if he intended to visit the new Cliftonville areas in his area in order we could ask questions?

    No reply - at least Laura has made efforts to get out and about and speak to the people about their concerns.

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  12. Ladies and gentlemen,

    Suggest you try www.election-maps.co.uk

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  13. Chris suggest you try it as I already have and the maps there are almost impossible to use as the OS are worried about people copying them, it is once again like trying to work it out on the back of a fag packet, in fact not in any way up to the standard one would expect for something as important as the general election.

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  14. About the BBC Website, I meant you can check your constituency by typing in your postcode. It should (theoretically) work... I just typed in my old Cliftonville postcode and it did direct me to South Thanet as it should have done. Wont show a proper map but it gives the answer you require.

    Alternatively contact a local party and ask them which area you are in. The street name will suffice. Im sure they'd be more than happy to tell you which constituency you are in.

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  15. James please appreciate that I and I think most other people who are likely vote know what constancy we are in, this is much more about my interest in the democratic process in Thanet and in the UK as a whole.

    It isn’t that I disagree with the boundary changes but very much that when an unselected and tax funded body makes changes that are likely to effect the results of the general election locally and nationally, then what they have done should be expressed clearly in a way that ordinary people can understand.

    The maps published on this post come from the boundary commission’s website and as you can see from them it just isn’t possible to determine exactly where the boundaries lie.

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  16. I've pretty much made up my mind to vote Labour now. I don't think some of the things I feel strongly about would've happened under a Tory government (minimum wage, gay marriages, fox hunting ban), so better the devil etc... I still have a problem with Brown, but Cameron is even worse, a slimy little creep who reminds me of Blair.

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  17. Peter how could you be that unfair to that nice Mr. Cameroon

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  18. Love people who can tell their ideas clearly. Thank you.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.