History and Character
Richmond Park constituency was created in 1997 from the old Richmond & Barnes constituency (held until then by the Conservative Jeremy Hanley) and the northern half of the Kingston upon Thames constituency (held by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, also Conservative). Hanley was selected as the Conservative candidate to fight for the new seat, but he lost to Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat). The seat was held by the Liberal Democrats until 2010, when it was gained by Zac Goldsmith for the Conservatives.
The area is almost entirely affluent middle-class suburbia with plenty of leafy streets, and desirable late Victorian and Edwardian houses with large gardens. It has many pleasant open green spaces, including Richmond Park itself, the world famous botanic gardens at Kew, and the London Wetland Centre.
The northern parts of the constituency suffer from aircraft noise when aeroplanes are landing in a westerly direction at London Heathrow Airport.
Read more about this topic: Richmond Park (UK Parliament Constituency)
Famous quotes containing the words history and, history and/or character:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Crime seems to change character when it crosses a bridge or a tunnel. In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs, though, it’s intimate and psychological—resistant to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)