Bedford (UK Parliament Constituency)
Bedford is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The seat was established in its current form in 1997, restoring a centuries old name. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first-past-the-post system of election. It is a marginal seat between the Labour Party and the Conservatives.
A two seat representation for the parliamentary borough of Bedford was originally established in 1295, electing two MPs by the bloc vote system. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 reduced it to one seat for the 1885 general election. The parliamentary borough was abolished in 1918 and replaced with a county constituency of the same name. The constituency was abolished in boundary changes for the 1983 general election, and restored in 1997.
Read more about Bedford (UK Parliament Constituency): History
Famous quotes containing the words bedford and/or parliament:
“When, said Mr. Phillips, he communicated to a New Bedford audience, the other day, his purpose of writing his life, and telling his name, and the name of his master, and the place he ran from, the murmur ran round the room, and was anxiously whispered by the sons of the Pilgrims, “He had better not!” and it was echoed under the shadow of the Concord monument, “He had better not!””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The war shook down the Tsardom, an unspeakable abomination, and made an end of the new German Empire and the old Apostolic Austrian one. It ... gave votes and seats in Parliament to women.... But if society can be reformed only by the accidental results of horrible catastrophes ... what hope is there for mankind in them? The war was a horror and everybody is the worse for it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)