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Brit structure and usage inquiries .

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The_Walrus
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02 May 2018, 1:43 pm

With regards to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of England basically makes everything up as it goes along. There is a church committee which recommends two names to the Prime Minister, who suggests to the monarch that she should appoint one of them in particular. So the PM can't just decide to make an atheist the Archbishop, unless of course the committee recommends an atheist.

Constituencies mostly loosely follow natural, geographical, or historical boundaries. This country's history of racial segregation isn't as strong so we don't need to come up with majority-minority districts and probably couldn't anyway in most places. As said, boundaries are set independently although Parliament has a veto, which is likely to stop the boundary changes they've been trying to pass for the last 8 years from ever going through.

Most constituencies are very similar in size. There are three exceptions which are protected in law: the Isle of Wight, which is significantly bigger than anywhere else and is even expected to be split in two if a boundary review ever goes through, and the Western Isles (apologies, forgotten the official name) and Orkney & Shetland in Scotland, which are both significantly smaller than anywhere else.

Elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and London Assemblies use partially proportional systems. Hopefully we'll see something similar nationally one day, but I won't hold my breath.



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02 May 2018, 3:02 pm

Trogluddite wrote:
^ A member of the house of commons represents a "constituency". I don't know how they compare in size to a USA district but, for example, London currently has 73 constituencies. Constituency boundaries are determined by a body called the "Boundary Commission". The issue of gerrymandering does come up - in fact there is some hoo-ha going on about proposed changes at the moment. However, I think it probably does happen less here because we don't have quite the same state/federal dichotomy in governance, so changing boundaries is a very length process which is usually done at a national level.

Regarding the religious views of Prime Ministers, I found the following mentioned as non-Anglicans [my additions in brackets]...

Balfour, Campbell-Bannerman, and Brown were members of the Church of Scotland. [essentially Presbyterian, but the ruling Monarch is nominally both Church of England and Church of Scotland].

Asquith and Wilson were Congregationalists.

Lloyd George was a Non-conformist [Baptist upbringing, but he privately admitted to doubting his faith while publicly still practising]

Law and MacDonald were Presbyterians.

Chamberlain was a Unitarian.

Attlee was an Agnostic.

Callaghan was an Atheist.

Non-conformist Christians (i.e. not Anglican) were barred from public office until 1828. The requirement to be a Christian lasted until 1858, and finally, in 1886 atheists were permitted to run for office.


Aren't you forgetting someone?
One VERY non Anglican prime minister.

Benjamin Disraeli!

He was Jewish.



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02 May 2018, 3:52 pm

^ Good catch! :D
I'm quite surprised I didn't see that mentioned in my quick Google session (I didn't know any of the others beforehand, either, just got curious) - I would have expected it to have been quite a "stand out" that would have been prominent.


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02 May 2018, 4:13 pm

I think Disraeli was a converso in order to receive a higher education and hold public office. In other words he was a Jew baptised into the Church of England. This was not unusual back then.


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Last edited by fluffysaurus on 02 May 2018, 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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02 May 2018, 4:22 pm

It doesn't matter who is made Archbishop of Canterbury as long as they know how to behave properly, like this.


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02 May 2018, 8:20 pm

ASS-P wrote:
Okay , to start with .
" Labour peer " . I often see that usage in Brit stuff , I assume referring to a peer who received he/his peerage under a Labour administration in Downing Street . I guess peerages are nominated by whoever the PM is at that time - but I have never seen the phrase " Tory peer " used . Only " Labour peer " . Why is it considered worthy of note to specify someone as being a " Labour peer " and not a " Tory peer " (Or , " Conservative peer " - " Conservative and Unionist " , in fact :P !) ?


Because Labour is more likely to elevate 'the common man' to peerage, at least I'd assume as a potentially ignorant non-Brit.


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02 May 2018, 8:22 pm

fluffysaurus wrote:
I think Disraeli was a converso in order to receive a higher education and hold public office. In other words he was a Jew baptised into the Church of England. This was not unusual back then.

Wiki wrote:
Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury, then a part of Middlesex. His father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue; young Benjamin became an Anglican at the age of 12.


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03 May 2018, 1:10 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
ASS-P wrote:
Okay , to start with .
" Labour peer " . I often see that usage in Brit stuff , I assume referring to a peer who received he/his peerage under a Labour administration in Downing Street . I guess peerages are nominated by whoever the PM is at that time - but I have never seen the phrase " Tory peer " used . Only " Labour peer " . Why is it considered worthy of note to specify someone as being a " Labour peer " and not a " Tory peer " (Or , " Conservative peer " - " Conservative and Unionist " , in fact :P !) ?


Because Labour is more likely to elevate 'the common man' to peerage, at least I'd assume as a potentially ignorant non-Brit.

Yeah that's completely wrong, just as the original comment was! There are 203 Conservative life peers, as opposed to 186 Labour life peers. This is unsurprising as the Conservatives have been in government for eight years, so naturally the balance of the House has shifted to reflect their dominance in the Commons (although they don't have a majority due to the large Lib Dem contingent in the Lords and the crossbenchers and non-affiliates).



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05 May 2018, 12:10 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
ASS-P wrote:
Okay , to start with .
" Labour peer " . I often see that usage in Brit stuff , I assume referring to a peer who received he/his peerage under a Labour administration in Downing Street . I guess peerages are nominated by whoever the PM is at that time - but I have never seen the phrase " Tory peer " used . Only " Labour peer " . Why is it considered worthy of note to specify someone as being a " Labour peer " and not a " Tory peer " (Or , " Conservative peer " - " Conservative and Unionist " , in fact :P !) ?


Because Labour is more likely to elevate 'the common man' to peerage, at least I'd assume as a potentially ignorant non-Brit.

Yeah that's completely wrong, just as the original comment was! There are 203 Conservative life peers, as opposed to 186 Labour life peers. This is unsurprising as the Conservatives have been in government for eight years, so naturally the balance of the House has shifted to reflect their dominance in the Commons (although they don't have a majority due to the large Lib Dem contingent in the Lords and the crossbenchers and non-affiliates).


Ah, thank you. 8)


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