Ealing, Southall

Now, which anorak shall I put on tonight ... my GU one, which had such a successful outing last week? Or my older, much loved, British Elections one? (I'll have you know that at the Political Studies Association Annual Quiz this year, I was the only member of my team (which came a very creditable second) to correctly identify the February 1974 General Election from the resultant distribution of seats in the House of Commons).

There is a parliamentary byelection this Thursday - by which time I will hopefully have more interesting (never!) things to write about, so I'm doing this one now. The byelection is in the constituency of Ealing, Southall. Wow! was my first thought. Two Town Class boats for the price of one. So naturally, being the lover of lists that I am, I set about another, possibly more ambitious, mapping exercise.

GU boats* that share their name with a UK Parliamentary Constituency.

I have had to subdivide this into three categories. Firstly, there are the ones that map exactly - a surprising number of them, I thought:
Banbury
Bath
Battersea
Dover
Gainsborough
Halton
Lichfield
Nuneaton
Romsey
Slough
Stratford (upon Avon)
Streatham
Taunton
Yeovil

Then there are the ones whose urban namesakes are large enough to be subdivided into two or more constituencies:
Belfast (4 constituencies)
Birmingham (10)
Bournemouth (2)
Brighton (2)
Bristol (4)
Bury (2)
Cardiff (2)
Dudley (2)
Ealing (2: North and Southall)
Reading (2)

And finally the ones whose towns are small enough to be combined with others:
Ayr (Carrick and Cumnock)
Barrow (and Furness)
Beverley (and Holderness)
Bexhill (and Battle)
Bognor (Regis and Littlehampton)
Chesham (and Amersham)
Denton (and Reddish)
Epsom (and Ewell)
Feltham (and Heston)
Hampstead (and Highgate)
Poplar (and Canning Town)
Ruislip (-Northwood)
(Scarborough and) Whitby
Sutton and Cheam (another two-for-one)
Tiverton (and Honiton)

How much more pointless can this get? I don't know, but I'm working on it. Better watch this space.

*I know I could find even more constituencies if I looked at other companies, especially FMC. But that would be a bit obsessive, wouldn't it?