Boundaries
The Isle of Wight forms a single constituency of the House of Commons. The constituency covers exactly the same land area as the ceremonial county of the Isle of Wight, and the area administered by the unitary authority, Isle of Wight Council.
With an electorate of 110,924 (as of 2010), the constituency has by far the largest electorate in the UK, more than 50% above the England average of 71,537. This is five times the size of the smallest electorate (Na h-Eileanan an Iar, formerly known as the Western Isles), despite the Isle of Wight having some of the same problems as an island constituency. Successive Boundary Commissions have considered the possibility of splitting the island into two constituencies (or possibly having a constituency crossing the Solent onto the mainland) but with a distinct lack of local enthusiasm for either option it was felt that the island would be better represented by a single MP. One repeated problem has been the difficulty of dividing the island in two in a way that would be acceptable to all interests.
Read more about this topic: Isle Of Wight (UK Parliament Constituency)
Famous quotes containing the word boundaries:
“We must be generously willing to leave for a time the narrow boundaries in which our individual lives are passed ... In this fresh, breezy atmosphere ... we will be surprised to find that many of our familiar old conventional truths look very queer indeed in some of the sudden side lights thrown upon them.”
—Bertha Honore Potter Palmer (1849–1918)
“Whereas the Greeks gave to will the boundaries of reason, we have come to put the will’s impulse in the very center of reason, which has, as a result, become deadly.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Ideas are not thoughts; the thought respects the boundaries that the idea ignores thereby failing to realize itself.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)