1.
Greater London
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London, or Greater London, is a region of England which forms the administrative boundaries of London. It is organised into 33 local government districts, the 32 London boroughs, the Greater London Authority, based in Southwark, is responsible for strategic local government across the region and consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The county of Greater London was created on 1 April 1965 through the London Government Act 1963, administratively, Greater London was first established as a sui generis council area under the Greater London Council between 1963 and 1986. The area was re-established as a region in 1994, and the Greater London Authority formed in 2000, the region covers 1,572 km2 and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census. In 2012, it had the highest GVA per capita in the United Kingdom at £37,232, the Greater London Built-up Area—used in some national statistics—is a measure of the continuous urban area of London, and therefore includes areas outside of the administrative region. The term Greater London has been and still is used to different areas in governance, statistics, history. In terms of ceremonial counties, London is divided into the small City of London, outside the limited boundaries of the City, a variety of arrangements has governed the wider area since 1855, culminating in the creation of the Greater London administrative area in 1965. The Greater London Arterial Road Programme was devised between 1913 and 1916, one of the larger early forms was the Greater London Planning Region, devised in 1927, which occupied 1,856 square miles and included 9 million people. The LCC pressed for an alteration in its boundaries soon after the end of the First World War, noting that within the Metropolitan, a Royal Commission on London Government was set up to consider the issue. The LCC proposed a vast new area for Greater London, with a boundary somewhere between the Metropolitan Police District and the home counties, protests were made at the possibility of including Windsor, Slough and Eton in the authority. The Commission made its report in 1923, rejecting the LCCs scheme, two minority reports favoured change beyond the amalgamation of smaller urban districts, including both smaller borough councils and a central authority for strategic functions. The London Traffic Act 1924 was a result of the Commission, Greater London originally had a two-tier system of local government, with the Greater London Council sharing power with the City of London Corporation and the 32 London Borough councils. The GLC was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985 and its functions were devolved to the City Corporation and the London Boroughs, with some functions transferred to central government and joint boards. Greater London was used to form the London region of England in 1994, a referendum held in 1998 established a public will to recreate an upper tier of government to cover the region. The Greater London Authority, London Assembly and the directly elected Mayor of London were created in 2000 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999, in 2000, the outer boundary of the Metropolitan Police District was re-aligned to the Greater London boundary. The 2000 and 2004 mayoral elections were won by Ken Livingstone, the 2008 and 2012 elections were won by Boris Johnson. The 2016 election was won by Sadiq Khan, Greater London continues to include the most closely associated parts of the Greater London Urban Area and their historic buffers. Thus it includes, in five boroughs, significant parts of the Metropolitan Green Belt which protects designated greenfield land in a way to the citys parks
2.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
3.
Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
4.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
5.
Regions of England
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The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards
6.
Ceremonial counties of England
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk
7.
Kingston upon Thames
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Kingston upon Thames, also known as Kingston, is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned, Kingston is situated 10 miles southwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Kingston lies approximately 33 feet above sea level, Kingston was part of a large ancient parish in the county of Surrey and the town was an ancient borough, reformed in 1835. It has been the location of Surrey County Hall from 1893, most of the town centre is part of the KT1 postcode area, but some areas north of Kingston railway station have the postcode KT2 instead. The population of the town itself, comprising the four wards of Canbury, Grove, Norbiton, Kingston was called Cyninges tun in 838, Chingestune in 1086, Kingeston in 1164, Kyngeston super Tamisiam in 1321 and Kingestowne upon Thames in 1589. The name means the manor or estate from the Old English words cyning. It belonged to the king in Saxon times and was the earliest royal borough and it was first mentioned in 838 as the site of a meeting between King Egbert of Wessex and Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury. Kingston lay on the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, until in the tenth century when King Athelstan united both to create the kingdom of England. Probably because of the symbolic location, several tenth-century kings were crowned in Kingston, Æthelstan in 925, Eadred in 946. Other kings who may have been crowned there are Edward the Elder in 902, Edmund in 939, Eadwig in 956, Edgar in about 960 and Edward the Martyr in 975. It was initially used as a block, but in 1850 it was moved to a more dignified place in the market before finally being moved to its current location in the grounds of the guildhall. Well known aviation personalities Sydney Camm, Harry Hawker and Tommy Sopwith were responsible for much of Kingstons achievements in aviation. British Aerospace finally closed its Lower Ham Road factory in 1992, part of the site was redeveloped for housing but the riverside part houses a community centre. The growth and development of Kingston Polytechnic and its transformation into Kingston University has made Kingston a university town, Kingston upon Thames formed an ancient parish in the Kingston hundred of Surrey. The parish of Kingston upon Thames covered an area including Hook, Kew, New Malden, Petersham, Richmond, Surbiton, Thames Ditton. The town of Kingston was granted a charter by King John in 1200, but the oldest one to survive is from 1208, other charters were issued by later kings, including Edward IVs charter that gave the town the status of a borough in 1481. The borough covered a smaller area than the ancient parish, although as new parishes were split off the borough. The borough was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, becoming the Municipal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames and it had been known as a Royal borough through custom and the right to the title was confirmed by George V in 1927
8.
London boroughs
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London boroughs are 32 of the 33 local authority districts of the Greater London administrative area and are each governed by a London borough council. The London boroughs were all created at the time as Greater London on 1 April 1965 by the London Government Act 1963 and are a type of local government district. Twelve were designated as Inner London boroughs and twenty as Outer London boroughs, London boroughs have populations of around 150,000 to 300,000. Inner London boroughs tend to be smaller, in population and area, and more densely populated than Outer London boroughs. The London boroughs were created by combining groups of local government units. A review undertaken between 1987 and 1992 led to a number of small alterations in borough boundaries. London borough councils provide the majority of government services, in contrast to the strategic Greater London Authority. The councils were first elected in 1964 and acted as shadow authorities until 1 April 1965, each borough is divided into electoral wards, subject to periodic review, for the purpose of electing councillors. Council elections take place four years, with the most recent elections in 2014. The political make-up of London borough councils is dominated by the Conservative, Labour, twenty-eight councils follow the leader and cabinet model of executive governance, with directly elected mayors in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, and Tower Hamlets. The City of London is instead governed by the City of London Corporation, from the mid-1930s, the Greater London area comprised four types of local government authorities. There were county boroughs, municipal boroughs, urban districts and metropolitan boroughs, the large county boroughs provided all local government services and held the powers usually invested in county councils. The municipal borough and urban district authorities had fewer powers, reform of London local government sought to regularise this arrangement. The Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London was established in 1957 and it proposed 52 Greater London Boroughs with a population range of 100,000 to 250,000. This was made up of a mixture of existing units. In December 1961 the government proposed that there would be 34 boroughs rather than 52, the proposed number was further reduced to 32 in 1962. On 1 April 1965, the 32 London boroughs and Greater London were created by the London Government Act 1963,12 boroughs in the former County of London area were designated Inner London boroughs and the 20 others were designated Outer London boroughs. The City of London continued to be administered by the City of London Corporation, elections were held on 7 May 1964, with the new councils acting as shadow authorities before coming into their powers the following year
9.
Kingston upon Thames London Borough Council
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Kingston London Borough Council is the local authority for the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London and it was envisaged through the London Government Act 1963 that Kingston upon Thames as a London local authority would share power with the Greater London Council. As an outer London borough council it has been an education authority since 1965, Kingston upon Thames local elections Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames website
10.
Conservative Party (UK)
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The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently the party, having won a majority of seats in the House of Commons at the 2015 general election. The partys leader, Theresa May, is serving as Prime Minister. It is the largest party in government with 8,702 councillors. The Conservative Party is one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, the other being its modern rival. The Conservative Partys platform involves support for market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defence, deregulation. In the 1920s, the Liberal vote greatly diminished and the Labour Party became the Conservatives main rivals, Conservative Prime Ministers led governments for 57 years of the twentieth century, including Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Thatchers tenure led to wide-ranging economic liberalisation, the Conservative Partys domination of British politics throughout the twentieth century has led to them being referred to as one of the most successful political parties in the Western world. The Conservatives are the joint-second largest British party in the European Parliament, with twenty MEPs, the party is a member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe Europarty and the International Democrat Union. The party is the second-largest in the Scottish Parliament and the second-largest in the Welsh Assembly, the party is also organised in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The Conservative Party traces its origins to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party and they were known as Independent Whigs, Friends of Mr Pitt, or Pittites. After Pitts death the term Tory came into use and this was an allusion to the Tories, a political grouping that had existed from 1678, but which had no organisational continuity with the Pittite party. From about 1812 on the name Tory was commonly used for the newer party, the term Conservative was suggested as a title for the party by a magazine article by J. Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review in 1830. The name immediately caught on and was adopted under the aegis of Sir Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative Party, which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto, the term Conservative Party rather than Tory was the dominant usage by 1845. In 1912, the Liberal Unionists merged with the Conservative Party, in Ireland, the Irish Unionist Alliance had been formed in 1891 which merged anti-Home Rule Unionists into one political movement. Its MPs took the Conservative whip at Westminster, and in essence formed the Irish wing of the party until 1922. The Conservatives served with the Liberals in an all-party coalition government during World War I, keohane finds that the Conservatives were bitterly divided before 1914, especially on the issue of Irish Unionism and the experience of three consecutive election losses
11.
Ed Davey
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Sir Edward Jonathan Davey FRSA is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He was Member of Parliament for Kingston and Surbiton from 1997 to 2015, Davey was born in Annesley Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire. His father John died when Davey was four years old, and his mother Nina eleven years later, whilst at Oxford, he was also elected to the JCR presidency of Jesus College. As a teenager he worked at Pork Farms pork pie factory, in 1993, he took up the position of management consultant with Omega Partners until being elected. Davey was responsible for introducing the Liberal Democrat policy of penny on income tax to pay for education in 1997 and he was one of the contributors to the Orange Book. In 2003 Davey introduced the clause which repealed the prohibition of promotion of homosexuality under Section 28 of the original Local Government Act 1988, Davey was re-elected in the 2001 general election with an increased majority over former Conservative MP David Shaw. He entered the Charles Kennedy Liberal Democrat frontbench the same year by becoming Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the Treasury matters, in 2002 he became the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. He was appointed Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Education and Skills in 2005 before becoming Liberal Democrats spokesperson for Trade, in December 2006, he succeeded Norman Lamb as Chief of Staff to Sir Menzies Campbell, the party leader. Davey is Chair of the partys Campaigns and Communications Committee, on 26 February 2008, Davey was suspended from parliament for the day for ignoring a warning from the deputy speaker. He was protesting about the exclusion by the speaker of a Liberal Democrat motion to debate and vote on whether the UK should have a referendum on staying in the EU. As Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Davey also became a member of the National Security Council, at the 2015 general election, Davey was defeated by Conservative candidate James Berry by 2,834 votes after the Liberal Democrat vote fell by over 15%. Davey married Emily Gasson in summer 2005 and their first child and their son has speech difficulties, leading to Daveys interest in speech therapy. They live in Surbiton, London as Davey has since before his election to parliament in 1997, Emily has the number two position on the Lib Dem London-wide candidate list for the 2016 London Assembly elections. In 2001 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Davey was knighted in the 2016 New Year Honours
12.
Liberal Democrats (UK)
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The Liberal Democrats are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. The party was formed in 1988 as a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, at the 2015 general election, the party was reduced to eight MPs. Nick Clegg resigned as leader and Tim Farron won the subsequent leadership election, the party currently has nine MPs, following the Richmond Park by-election. The Alliance was led by David Steel and Roy Jenkins, Jenkins was replaced by David Owen, the two parties had their own policies and emphases, but produced a joint manifesto for the 1983 and 1987 general elections. Following disappointing results in the 1987 election, Steel proposed to merge the two parties, although opposed by Owen, it was supported by a majority of members of both parties, and they formally merged in March 1988, with Steel and Robert Maclennan as joint interim leaders. The new party was initially named Social and Liberal Democrats with the short form The Democrats being used from September 1988. The name was changed to Liberal Democrats in October 1989. The new party logo, the Bird of Liberty, was adopted in 1989, the party is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party and Liberal International. The then-serving Liberal MP Paddy Ashdown was elected leader in July 1988, at the 1989 European Elections, the party received only 6% of the vote, putting them in fourth place after the Green Party. They failed to gain a single Member of the European Parliament at this election, over the next three years, the party recovered under Ashdowns leadership. They performed better at the 1990 local elections and in by-elections—including at Eastbourne in 1990, Ribble Valley in 1991, the Lib Dems did not reach the share of national votes in the 1990s that the Alliance had achieved in the 1980s. At their first election in 1992, they won 17. 8% of the vote, in the 1994 European Elections, the party gained its first two Members of European Parliament. The election was, however, something of a point for the Liberal Democrats. Ashdown retired as leader in 1999 and the party elected Charles Kennedy as his replacement, the party improved on their 1997 results at the 2001 general election, increasing their number of seats to 52 and their share of the vote to 18. 3%. The party won seats from Labour in by-elections in Brent East in 2003 and Leicester South in 2004, under Kennedys leadership the majority of Pro-Euro Conservatives, a group of former members of the Conservatives, joined the Liberal Democrats on 10 December 2001. At the 2005 general election, the Lib Dems gained their highest share of the vote since the SDP–Liberal Alliance and won 62 seats. Many had anticipated that this election would be the Lib Dems breakthrough at Westminster, party activists hoped to better the 25% support of the 1983 election, or to reach 100 MPs. Much of the apparent lack of success resulted from the first-past-the-post electoral system, controversy became associated with the campaign when it became known that Michael Brown had donated £2.4 million to the Liberal Democrats
13.
Zac Goldsmith
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Frank Zacharias Robin Goldsmith is a British politician and journalist who, between the 2010 general election and October 2016, represented Richmond Park as its Member of Parliament. He was the Conservative candidate in the 2016 London mayoral election, born in London, the son of billionaire businessman and financier Sir James Goldsmith, he was educated at Eton College and the Cambridge Centre for Sixth-form Studies. In 1998, his uncle Edward Goldsmith made him editor of The Ecologist, Goldsmith was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Quality of Life Policy Group in 2005, co-authoring its report published in 2007. At the 2010 general election, he was elected to Parliament winning the seat with a majority of 4,091. At the 2015 general election, Goldsmith was returned to the Commons with a majority of 23,015, an increase of almost 19,000 since 2010, against his nearest opponent, a Liberal Democrat. He announced his resignation as a Member of Parliament following the Governments October 2016 decision to approve a third runway at Heathrow Airport and his resignation triggered a by-election in the Richmond Park constituency in which Goldsmith stood as an independent candidate. He was defeated by Sarah Olney of the Liberal Democrats, Goldsmith was brought up at Ormeley Lodge in Ham with his siblings, Jemima and Ben. He has five paternal half-siblings, and is also half-brother to Robin and India Jane Birley, as a child, Goldsmith was an avid reader of naturalist Gerald Durrells works and developed a committed passion for David Attenboroughs wildlife programmes. He later recalled, He was my hero, and it was his work made me fall in love with the natural world. His ecological interests were nurtured further when his father gave him a copy of Helena Norberg-Hodges book Ancient Futures, with a note saying, Goldsmith travelled throughout the world with the International Honours Programme, including to Thailand, New Zealand, Mexico, Hungary and Italy. In 1997, Goldsmith was appointed Reviews Editor of The Ecologist by his uncle Edward Goldsmith, in 1998, he became Editor-in-Chief and Director of The Ecologist but did not draw a salary. Goldsmith has spoken and written about environmental causes in Britain and has twice been invited to debate at the Oxford Union and he writes for UK newspapers including the Daily Mail, London Evening Standard, Observer and The Telegraph. He is also a contributor to such as the New Statesman. Among the other contributors are western writers, such as Laurens van der Post, Noam Chomsky, Claude Lévi-Strauss and indigenous persons, such as Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Roy Sesana. In his essay, Goldsmith writes about how his travel around the world in his youth gave him experience of the misery brought by the promise of western progress. He reflects on the culture of people and, in reverence to it. In December 2005, David Cameron approved Goldsmiths appointment as Deputy Chairman, the group was tasked with the responsibility of examining quality of life matters such as carbon emissions and climate change, clean air and transport with a view to formulating Conservative policy. The groups 600-page report, jointly authored by Goldsmith and Gummer, was presented at the Royal Institute of British Architects on 13 September 2007, the reports proposals also attracted comment from the aviation industry
14.
London (European Parliament constituency)
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London is a constituency of the European Parliament. It currently elects 8 MEPs using the method of party-list proportional representation. The constituency corresponds to the Greater London region of England, in the south east of the United Kingdom, prior to 1999, London was represented by a number of single-member constituencies. The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 reduced this to a constituency returning a number of MEPs. Below are all the members since the creation of the London constituency, the number of seats allocated to London has been reduced from 10 to 8 between 1999 and 2009 due to EU enlargement. Members elected in 1999 who previously represented a London constituency were Pauline Green, elected candidates are shown in bold. Brackets indicate the number of votes per seat won, the 2014 results were delayed by Tower Hamlets, where there were recounts needed for six local election wards
15.
Irish Briton
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Irish migration to Great Britain has occurred from the earliest recorded history to the present. There has been a movement of people between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain due to their proximity. This tide has ebbed and flowed in response to politics, economics, today, Ireland is divided between the independent Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Today, millions of residents of Great Britain are either from Ireland or have Irish ancestry and it is estimated that as many as six million people living in the UK have at least one Irish grandparent. The Irish diaspora refers to Irish people and their descendants who live outside Ireland and this article refers to those who reside in Great Britain, the largest island and principal territory of the United Kingdom. During the Dark Ages, significant Irish settlement of western Britain took place and this is based mostly on medieval writings from the 9th and 10th centuries. However, recently some archeologists have argued against this view, saying there is no archeological or placename evidence for a migration or a takeover by a small group of elites. Due to the growth of Dál Riata, in size and influence, Scotland became almost wholly Gaelic-speaking until Northumbrian English began to replace Gaelic in the Lowlands. Gaelic remained the dominant languages of the Highlands into the 19th century, modwenna and others were significant in the following century. Some English monarchs, such as Oswiu of Northumbria, Aldfrith and Harold Godwinson were either raised in or sought refuge in Ireland, alfred the Great may have spent some of his childhood in Ireland. In the year 902 Vikings who had forced out of Ireland were given permission by the English to settle in Wirral. An Irish historical record known as The Three Fragments refers to a group of settlers living among these Vikings as Irishmen. Historically, Irish immigrants to the United Kingdom in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were considered over-represented amongst those appearing in court, some notable people born in Ireland who settled in Great Britain between the 16th and 19th centuries, Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde, died 1635. Richard Brinsley Sheridan George Monro, 1700–57, arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington Thomas Moore, died 1852. It is estimated more than one million people died. A further wave of emigration to England also took place between the 1930s, and 1960s by Irish escaping poor economic conditions following the establishment of the Irish Free State. This was furthered by the labour shortage in Britain during the mid-20th century. Irelands population fell from more than 8 million to just 6.5 million between 1841 and 1851, a century later it had dropped to 4.3 million
16.
Other White
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The category does not comprise a single ethnic group but is instead a method of identification for white people who are not represented by other white census categories. This means that the Other White group contains a collection of people with different countries of birth, religions. Along with White British and White Irish, the category does not appear in Northern Ireland, in the 2001 UK Census, the majority of people living in England and Wales ticking the Other White ethnic group specified their ethnicity as European. Four out of five of the Other White category were born overseas, a third were born in a Western European country other than the UK, and one in seven were born in an Eastern European country. The Other White group is largely of working age, with one in ten aged over 65. This does vary according to the country of birth, with people born in the UK being disproportionately young. Polish and Italian respondents had a proportion of over 65s. A wide number of religions are represented in the Other White group, classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom
17.
British Indian
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The term British Indian refers to citizens of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots lie in India. This includes people born in the UK who are of Indian descent, today, Indians comprise about 1.4 million people in the UK, making them the single largest visible ethnic minority population in the country. They make up the largest subgroup of British Asians, and are one of the largest Indian communities in the Indian diaspora, mainly due to the Indian-British relations. The British Indian community is the sixth largest in the Indian diaspora, behind the Indian communities in the United States, Saudi Arabia, British Indians are socioeconomically affluent and are primarily members of the middle class. A study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2011 found British Indians have among the lowest poverty rates among all groups in Britain. Studies have shown that Indians are more likely to be employed in professional and managerial occupations, No one knows the earliest settlement of Indians in Great Britain for certain. If the Romani, often known by the exonym Gypsies, are regarded as South Asian, the Romanichal and Kale originated in what is now North India and Pakistan, and began migrating westward around 1000 C. E. mixing with Southwest Asians and continental Europeans over the centuries. Romani began arriving in numbers in Western Europe during the 16th century. People from India have settled in Great Britain since the East India Company recruited lascars to replace vacancies in their crews on East Indiamen whilst on voyages in India. Initially these were men from the Indo-Portuguese or Luso-Asian communities of the subcontinent, including men from Bombay, Goa, Cochin, Madras, later Muslim Bengalis and men from Ratnagiri were hired. Many were then refused passage back and had no alternative than to settle in London, there were also some ayahs, domestic servants and nannies of wealthy British families, who accompanied their employers back to Britain when their stay in South Asia came to an end. British soldiers would sometimes marry Indian women and send their mixed race children back to Britain. Indian wives of British soldiers would sometimes ask for passage home after being abandoned or widowed if they did accompany their children, in 1835, Bridget Peter a native of the Madras region lost her husband, a British soldier serving in His Majestys 1st Foot Regiment. She petitioned the Directors from Chelsea Hospital in a state of destitution and they paid to return her and her three children to India. The Navigation Act of 1660 restricted the employment of non-English sailors to a quarter of the crew on returning East India Company ships, in 1797,13 were buried in the parish of St Nicholas at Deptford. During the 19th century, the East India Company brought thousands of Indian lascars, scholars and workers to Britain largely to work on ships and it is estimated 8,000 Indians lived in Britain permanently prior to the 1950s. Due to the majority of early Asian immigrants being lascar seamen, naval cooks also came, many of them from the Sylhet Division of what is now Bangladesh. One of the most famous early Bengali immigrants to Britain was Sake Dean Mahomet, in 1810, he founded Londons first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostane Coffee House
18.
British Pakistanis
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British Pakistanis are citizens or residents of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots lie in Pakistan. This includes people born in the UK who are of Pakistani descent, the majority of British Pakistanis originate from the Azad Kashmir and Punjab regions, with a smaller number from other parts of Pakistan including Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The UK is home to the largest Pakistani community in Europe, British Pakistanis are the second largest ethnic minority population in the United Kingdom and also make up the second largest subgroup of British Asians. In addition, they are the second largest overseas Pakistani community, due to the historical relations between the two countries, immigration to the UK from the region which is now Pakistan began in small numbers in the mid-nineteenth century. This was made easier as Pakistan was a member of the Commonwealth, Pakistani immigrants helped to resolve labour shortages in the British steel and textile industries. Doctors from Pakistan were recruited by the National Health Service in the 1960s, the British Pakistani population has grown from about 10,000 in 1951 to over 1.1 million in 2011. The vast majority of live in England, with a sizable number in Scotland and smaller numbers in Wales. The most diverse Pakistani population is in London which comprises Punjabis, Mirpuri Kashmiris, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Muhajirs, Saraikis, Baloch and others. The majority of British Pakistanis are Muslim, around 90 per cent of those living in England, the majority are Sunni Muslims, with a significant minority of Shia Muslims. The UK also has one of the largest overseas Christian Pakistani communities, since their settlement, British Pakistanis have had diverse contributions and influence on British society, politics, culture, economy and sport. A large number of British Pakistanis have traditionally been self-employed, with a significant number working in the industry or in family-run businesses of the retail sector. The earliest period of Asian migration to Britain has not been ascertained, immigration from what is now Pakistan to the United Kingdom began long before the independence of Pakistan in 1947. These immigrants were often the first Asians to be seen in British port cities and were perceived as indolent due to their reliance on Christian charities. Despite this, most early Pakistani immigrants married local white British women because there were few South Asian women in Britain at the time. During the colonial era, Asians continued coming to Britain as seamen, traders, students, domestic workers, cricketers, political officials and visitors, South Asian seamen sometimes settled after ill treatment or being abandoned by ship masters. Many early Pakistanis came to the UK as scholars and studied at major British institutions, an example of such a person is Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah came to the UK in 1892 and started an apprenticeship at Grahams Shipping and Trading Company, after completing his apprenticeship, Jinnah joined Lincolns Inn where he trained as a barrister. At 19, Jinnah became the youngest person from South Asia to be called to the bar in Britain, most early Pakistani settlers and their families moved from port towns to the Midlands, as Britain declared war on Germany in 1939
19.
British Bangladeshi
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British Bangladeshis are people of Bangladeshi origin who reside in the United Kingdom having immigrated to the UK and attained citizenship through naturalisation or whose ancestors did so. They are also known as British Bengalis, in reference to the ethnic group from that region. Large numbers of Bangladeshis immigrated to the UK, primarily from Sylhet, located in the north-east of the country, the largest concentration is in London, primarily in the east London boroughs, of which Tower Hamlets has the highest proportion. This large diaspora in London leads people in Bangladesh to refer to British Bangladeshis as Londonis, Bangladeshis form one of the UKs largest group of people of overseas descent and are also one of the countrys youngest and fastest growing communities. The 2011 UK Census recorded nearly half-a-million residents of Bangladeshi ethnicity, Bangladeshis form a largely homogeneous community. Rates of unemployment are typically high, there is overcrowding, British Bangladeshis have the highest overall relative poverty rate of any ethnic group in the UK with 65% of Bangladeshis living in low income households. Bengalis had been present in Britain as early as the 19th century, some ancestors of British Bangladeshis went to the UK before World War I. Author Caroline Adams records that in 1925 a lost Bengali man was searching for other Bengali settlers in London and they mainly immigrated to the United Kingdom to find work, achieve a better standard of living, and to escape conflict. During the pre-state years, the 1950s and 1960s, Bengali men immigrated to London in search of employment, most settled in Tower Hamlets, particularly around Spitalfields and Brick Lane. In 1971, Bangladesh fought for its independence from Pakistan in what was known as the Bangladesh Liberation War, in the region of Sylhet, this led some people to join the Mukti Bahini, or Liberation Army. In the 1970s, changes in immigration laws encouraged a new wave of Bangladeshis to come to the UK, job opportunities were initially limited to low paid sectors, with unskilled and semi-skilled work in small factories and the textile trade being common. When the Indian restaurant concept became popular, some Sylhetis started to open cafes, from these small beginnings a network of Bangladeshi restaurants, shops and other small businesses became established in Brick Lane and surrounding areas. The influence of Bangladeshi culture and diversity began to develop across the East London boroughs, the early immigrants lived and worked mainly in cramped basements and attics within the Tower Hamlets area. The men were illiterate, poorly educated, and spoke little English, so they could not interact well with the English-speaking population. Some became targets for businessmen, who sold their properties to Sylhetis, by the late 1970s, the Brick Lane area had become predominantly Bengali, replacing the former Jewish community which had declined. Jews migrated to outlying suburbs of London, as integrated with the majority British population. Jewish bakeries were turned into houses, jewellery shops became sari stores. The synagogue at the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane became the Jamme Masjid or Great London Mosque and this building represents the history of successive communities of immigrants in this part of London
20.
British Chinese
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They opened restaurants on the ports. Most British Chinese are descended from people who were themselves overseas Chinese when they came to Britain, most are from former British colonies, such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Mauritius. People from mainland China and Taiwan and their descendants constitute a minor proportion of the British Chinese community. Chinese communities are found in major cities including London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Sheffield, Nottingham, Belfast. The first recorded Chinese person in Britain was Shen Fu Tsong, Shen was the first person to catalogue the Chinese collection in the Bodleian Library. The King was so taken with him he had his portrait painted, the portrait of Shen hangs in the Queens collection. The first settlement of Chinese people in the United Kingdom dates from the early 19th century, because many of the Chinese settlers were originally seamen, the first settlements started in the port cities of Liverpool, Cardiff and London. In London, the Limehouse area became the site of one of the first Chinatowns established in Britain, a Chinese seaman known as John Anthony took on this lucrative role looking after Chinese sailors for the East India Shipping Company in the late 18th and early 19th century. By 1805, Anthony had amassed both the fortune and the influence to become the first Chinese man to be naturalised as a British citizen—an act so rare it actually required an Act of Parliament. British shipping companies first started employing Chinese sailors during the Napoleonic Wars to replace the British sailors who had called up to the Royal Navy. They soon discovered that they worked for less, did not drink to excess, conditions aboard ship appalled Lee Cheong, for instance, when he visited his fathers quarters, The smell. I remember the smell and the cramped conditions. I remember going down below, rows and rows of bunks, knapsacks and all sorts of junk stuffed in every nook, lots and lots of people milling around. I couldn’t think of anything worse than those sorts of conditions, with the advent of steam in the 1860s, the recruitment of Chinese seamen increased on the trading routes from the Far East. The first Chinese student to graduate from a British university was Wong Fun who received his MD in 1855 from Edinburgh, many Chinese graduates did indeed return to make a significant contribution to their country, but some stayed. The Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the most important celebration for Chinese and it links overseas Chinese and their descendants to their heritage, even though they live thousands of miles away from their ancestral homelands. Celebrations in London are famous for colourful parades, fireworks, the route starts in the Strand and goes along Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. Other activities include a show in Trafalgar Square with dragon and lion dances and traditional
21.
Black British
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Black British are British people of Black and African origins or heritage, including those of African-Caribbean background, and may include people with mixed ancestry. Black British is one of various self-designation entries used in official UK ethnicity classifications, Black residents constituted around 3 per cent of the United Kingdoms population in 2011. The figures have increased from just under 1.15 million residents in 2001, or 2 per cent of the population, over 95% of Black British live in England, particularly in Englands larger urban areas, with over a million Black British living in Greater London alone. Historically, the term has most commonly used to refer to Black people of New Commonwealth origin. For example, Southall Black Sisters was established in 1979 to meet the needs of black women, Black was used in this inclusive political sense to mean non-white British. The official UK Census has separate self-designation entries for respondents to identify as Asian British, Black British, the 1991 UK census was the first to include a question on ethnicity. Black British was also a term for those Black people in Sierra Leone who were descendants of migrants from England and Canada and considered themselves British. They are generally the descendants of people who lived in England in the 18th century. There is evidence of the presence of people from Romanised North Africa in Roman Britain, archaeological inscriptions suggest that most of these residents were involved with the military. However, some were in the echelons of society. Analysis of a found in a Roman grave in Yorkshire indicated that it belonged to a mixed-race female. Her sarcophagus was made of stone and also contained a jet bracelet, in 2007, scientists found the rare paternal haplogroup A1 in several living British men with Yorkshire surnames. This clade is today almost exclusively found among males in West Africa, the haplogroup is thus thought to have been brought to Britain either through enlisted soldiers during Roman Britain, or via the slave trade. Some of the individuals who arrived through the slave route attained a high social rank. Historical records indicate the presence of a very small African population in Britain dating at least as far as the 12th century, early in the 16th century, servants from parts of Africa probably arrived in London with Catherine of Aragon when she travelled to England to marry Henry VIII. A black musician is among the six trumpeters depicted in the retinue of Henry VIII in the Westminster Tournament Roll. He wears the royal livery, and is mounted on horseback, the man is generally identified as the John Blanke, the blacke trumpeter who appears in the payment accounts of both Henry VIII and his father, Henry VII. A group of Africans were at the court of James IV of Scotland, both he and John Blanke were paid wages for their services
22.
British African-Caribbean people
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British African Caribbean people are residents of the United Kingdom who are of West Indian background and whose ancestors were primarily natives or indigenous to Africa. African-Caribbean people are present throughout the United Kingdom with by far the largest concentrations in London, pauls in Bristol, or Handsworth and Aston in Birmingham or Moss Side in Manchester. According to the 2011 census, the largest number of African-Caribbean people are found in Croydon, there is now a view that the term should not be hyphenated and that indeed, the differences between such groups mean the people of African and Caribbean origins should be referred to separately. The Guardian and Observer style guide prescribes the use of African-Caribbean for use in the two newspapers, specifically noting not Afro-Caribbean, New World slavery was originally focused on the extraction of gold and other precious raw materials. Africans were then set to work on the vast cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations in the Americas for the economic benefit of these colonial powers. One impact of the American Revolution was the historical development of African-American and African-Caribbean people. Whereas the American colonies had established slavery by positive laws, slavery did not exist under English common law and was prohibited in England. Slaves cannot breathe in England, if their lungs receive our air and they touch our country, and their shackles fall. Thats noble, and bespeaks a nation proud, spread it then, And let it circulate through every vein. There are records of small communities in the ports of Cardiff, Liverpool, London and these communities were formed by freed slaves following the abolition of slavery. Typical occupations of the migrants were footmen or coachmen. Walter Tull, footballer and soldier, Andrew Watson, footballer, Robert Wedderburn, Spencean revolutionary Nathaniel Wells, landowner and yeomanry officer. The growing Caribbean presence in the British military led to approximately 15,000 migrants arriving in the north-west of England around the time of World War I to work in munitions factories. The Jamaican poet and communist activist, Claude McKay came to England following the First World War and became the first Black British journalist, in February 1941,345 West Indian workers were brought to work in and around Liverpool. They were generally better skilled than the local Black British, there was some tension between them and West Africans who had settled in the area. Since World War II, many African-Caribbean people migrated to North America and Europe, especially to the United States, Canada, the UK, France, and the Netherlands. As a result of the losses during the war, the British government began to mass immigration from the countries of the British Empire. The British Nationality Act 1948 gave British citizenship to all living in Commonwealth countries
23.
British Arabs
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British Arabs are British people citizens or residents of Arab ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage or identity from Arab countries. Unlike Black British or Asian British, the term British Arab was not one of those employed in government ethnicity categorisations used in the 2001 UK Census and for national statistics. As a result, community members are believed to have been under-counted in previous population estimates according to the National Association of British Arabs and this absence of a separate Arab category in the UK census obliged many to select other ethnicity categories. In the late 2000s, the British government announced that an Arab ethnicity category would be added to the 2011 UK Census for the first time, as a result,240,545 British Arabs were reported in the 2011 Census in England and Wales. It also notes that how many of the individual identities responded in the general Arab box is uncertain so there may be overlap in the numbers, it found 366,769 Arabs in England. British Arabs is used as an ethnic designation by the National Association of British Arabs. It is also employed by academics, and in the media, as of 2011, the National Association of British Arabs estimates that there are around 366,769 first and second generation British Arabs. The majority originate from Somalia, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, most live in the Greater London area, and many are either businesspeople, recent immigrants or students. There are also sizable and long-established Yemeni Arab communities living in both Cardiff and the South Shields area, the latter near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a diverse community, British Arabs are represented in the business and media fields, among other areas. Miladi s survey of 146 community members during the summer of 2001 reported Al-Jazeera as being the respondents preferred news outlet, additionally,2010 was a breakthrough year in terms of political participation. Several British Arabs ran for and/or were appointed to office as community representatives, according to the 2011 Census, the religious breakdown of Arabs in England and Wales can be seen in the table below
24.
Classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom
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According to the 2011 census, the total population of the United Kingdom was around 63,182,000. It is the 22nd-largest in the world and its overall population density is 259 people per square kilometre, with England having a significantly higher population density than Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This population growth through natural change has been accompanied in the past two decades by growth through net international migration into the UK, the United Kingdoms assumed high literacy rate is attributable to universal public education introduced for the primary level in 1870 and secondary level in 1900. Parents are obliged to have their children educated from the ages of 5 to 16, about 40% of British students go on to post-secondary education. The Church of England and the Church of Scotland function as the churches in their respective countries. The UKs population is predominantly White British, historically, British people were thought to be descended mainly from the different ethnic stocks that settled there before the 11th century, pre-Celtic, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman. Although Celtic languages are spoken in Scotland, Cornwall, and Northern Ireland. In North and West Wales, Welsh is widely spoken as a first language, but much less so in the South East of the country, during the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The proportion of the born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5 per thousand in 1730–1749 to 31.8 per thousand in 1810–1829. According to Robert Hughes in The Fatal Shore, the population of England and Wales, the first Census in 1801 revealed that the population of Great Britain was 10.5 million. In 1800, the population of Ireland was between 4.5 and 5.5 million, the 1841 UK Census counted the population of England and Wales to be 15.9 million. Irelands population was 8.2 million in 1841, the population of Scotland was 2.6 million. The Great Irish Famine, which began in the 1840s, caused the deaths of one million Irish people, mass emigration became entrenched as a result of the famine and the population continued to decline until the mid-20th century. The population of England had almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, ireland’s population decreased rapidly, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901. The estimated population of the United Kingdom in the 2011 census was 63.182 million of whom 31. 029m were male and 32. 153m female. Based on the 2011 census the population of England was 53. 012m, Scotland was estimated at 5. 295m, Wales was 3. 063m and Northern Ireland 1. 811m. The mid-2015 population estimates for the UK was 65. 1m – approximately 54. 8m for England,5. 4m for Scotland,3. 1m for Wales and 1. 9m for Northern Ireland. The UK Office for National Statistics 2012-based National Population Projections indicated that, if recent trends continue and this is an average annual growth rate of 0. 6% per annum
25.
Greenwich Mean Time
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Greenwich Mean Time is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. GMT was formerly used as the civil time standard, now superseded in that function by Coordinated Universal Time. Today GMT is considered equivalent to UTC for UK civil purposes and for navigation is considered equivalent to UT1, consequently, the term GMT should not be used for precise purposes. Due to Earths uneven speed in its orbit and its axial tilt, noon GMT is rarely the exact moment the sun crosses the Greenwich meridian. This event may occur up to 16 minutes before or after noon GMT, noon GMT is the annual average moment of this event, which accounts for the word mean in Greenwich Mean Time. Originally, astronomers considered a GMT day to start at noon while for almost everyone else it started at midnight, to avoid confusion, the name Universal Time was introduced to denote GMT as counted from midnight. Astronomers preferred the old convention to simplify their observational data, so each night was logged under a single calendar date. Today Universal Time usually refers to UTC or UT1, in some countries Greenwich Mean Time is the legal time in the winter and the population uses the term. For an explanation of why this is, see GMT in legislation below, synchronisation of the chronometer on GMT did not affect shipboard time, which was still solar time. Most time zones were based upon GMT, as an offset of a number of hours ahead of GMT or behind GMT and it was gradually adopted for other purposes, but a legal case in 1858 held local mean time to be the official time. On 14 May 1880, a signed by Clerk to Justices appeared in The Times, stating that Greenwich time is now kept almost throughout England. For example, our polling booths were opened, say, at 813 and closed at 413 PM. This was changed later in 1880, GMT was adopted on the Isle of Man in 1883, Jersey in 1898 and Guernsey in 1913. Ireland adopted GMT in 1916, supplanting Dublin Mean Time, hourly time signals from Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast on 5 February 1924, rendering the time ball at the observatory redundant in the process. The daily rotation of the Earth is irregular and constantly slows, on 1 January 1972, GMT was superseded as the international civil time standard by Coordinated Universal Time, maintained by an ensemble of atomic clocks around the world. Indeed, even the Greenwich meridian itself is not quite what it used to be—defined by the centre of the instrument at the Observatory at Greenwich. Nevertheless, the line in the old observatorys courtyard today differs no more than a few metres from that line which is now the prime meridian of the world. Historically GMT has been used two different conventions for numbering hours. The long-standing astronomical convention dating from the work of Ptolemy, was to refer to noon as zero hours and this contrasted with the civil convention of referring to midnight as zero hours dating from the Romans
26.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
27.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information
28.
Metropolitan Police Service
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As of March 2016, the Met employed 48,661 full-time personnel. This included 32,125 sworn police officers,9,521 police staff and this number excludes the 3,271 Special Constables, who work part-time and who have the same powers and uniform as their regular colleagues. This makes the Metropolitan Police the largest police force in the United Kingdom by a significant margin, the post of Commissioner was first held jointly by Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne. The post is occupied by the now-outgoing Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. The Commissioners deputy, the Deputy Commissioner, is currently Craig Mackey, a number of informal names and abbreviations exists for the Metropolitan Police Service, the most common being the Met. In colloquial London, it is referred to as the Old Bill. The Met is also referred to by the metonym Scotland Yard after the location of its headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The Mets current headquarters is New Scotland Yard, in Victoria, the Metropolitan Police Service, whose officers became affectionately known as bobbies, was founded in 1829 by Robert Peel under the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. In 1839, the Marine Police Force, which had formed in 1798, was amalgamated into the Metropolitan Police. In 1837, it also incorporated with the Bow Street Horse Patrol that had organised in 1805. Since January 2012, the Mayor of London is responsible for the governance of the Metropolitan Police through the Mayors Office for Policing, the mayor is able to appoint someone to act on his behalf, the current office-holder is Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden. The work of MOPAC is scrutinised by the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly, the area policed by the Metropolitan Police Service is known as the Metropolitan Police District. In terms of policing, the Met is divided into a number of Borough Operational Command Units. The City of London is a police area and is the responsibility of the separate City of London Police. The British Transport Police are responsible for policing of the network in the United Kingdom. Within London, they are responsible for the policing of the London Underground, Tramlink, The Emirates Air Line. There is also a park police force, the Kew Constabulary, responsible for the Royal Botanic Gardens. Officers also have limited powers in Scotland and Northern Ireland, within the MPD, the Met will take over the investigation of any serious crime from the British Transport Police and Ministry of Defence Police, if it is deemed appropriate
29.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
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Surbiton
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Surbiton is a suburban area of south-west London within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. It is situated next to the River Thames,11.0 miles south west of central London, Surbiton possesses a mixture of Art-Deco courts, more recent residential blocks and grand 19th century townhouses blending into a sea of semi-detached 20th century housing estates. See the article on Thomas Pooley for his rôle in the establishment of the town of Surbiton. See also the article on the Municipal Borough of Surbiton for the period 1855–1965 and this resulted in the line being routed further south, through a cutting in the hill south of Surbiton. Surbiton railway station opened in 1838, and was originally named Kingston-upon-Railway and it was only renamed Surbiton to distinguish it from the new Kingston railway station on the Shepperton branch line, which opened on 1 January 1869. The present station has an art deco façade and it was once home to Surbiton Studios which were owned by Stoll Pictures, before the company shifted its main production to Cricklewood Studios. The Pre-Raphaelite painters John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt came to Surbiton in 1851,26 years before Richard Jefferies, Millais used the Hogsmill River, in Six Acre Meadow, Tolworth, as the background for his painting Ophelia. Holman Hunt used the fields just south of this spot as the background to The Hireling Shepherd, in the mid-1870s the novelist Thomas Hardy lived in a house called St. Davids Villa in Hook Road, Surbiton for a year after his marriage to Emma Gifford. H. G. Wells, in his comic novel The Wheels of Chance, describes the cycle collision of Mr Hoopdriver and a Young Lady in Grey, the young lady approaching along an affluent from the villas of Surbiton. The writer Enid Blyton was governess to a Surbiton family for four years from 1920, at a house called Southernhay, middelton, who broadcast on gardening during the Second World War, lived in Surbiton, where he died suddenly outside his home. The artist who brought Rupert the Bear to life for a whole generation Alfred Bestall sketched out his cartoons from his home in Cranes Park, other names for the town include the Surbs and the Tron in reference to 80s movies The Burbs and Tron. Surbiton station features in the 2009 film version of Harry Potter, filming took place in November 2007. The station also appears in Agatha Christies Poirot, The Adventure of the Clapham Cook, a TV adaptation of the story by Agatha Christie. Surbiton receives a mention in the seventh chapter of the James Bond novel On Her Majestys Secret Service by Ian Fleming. The guitarist and singer-songwriter Eric Clapton purchased one of his first guitars from a shop in Surbiton called Bells, Surbiton is served by a number of regular bus services. London Buses routes 71,281,406,418,465, K1, K2, K3, Surbiton railway station provides rail links with London, Surrey and Hampshire. For education in Surbiton see the main Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames article, until the early 19th century, Surbiton, like Norbiton, lay in the parish of All Saints, Kingston upon Thames. As a result, Surbitons three parish churches all date back to the Victorian era, the two Anglican ones, Saint Marks and Saint Andrews, are located in the town centre
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Chessington
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Chessington is an area in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames within Greater London. It is the largest salient of Greater London into the county of Surrey. As of the 2011 census it had a population of 18,973, the Bonesgate Stream, a tributary of the Hogsmill River runs through it. The popular theme park resort Chessington World of Adventures, which incorporates Chessington Zoo, is located in the south-west of the area, neighbouring settlements include Tolworth, Ewell, Surbiton, Claygate, Epsom, Oxshott, Leatherhead, Esher, Kingston upon Thames and Worcester Park. Its name came from Anglo-Saxon Cissan dūn = hill belonging to Cissa, Chessington appears in the Domesday Book as Cisedune and Cisendone. It was held partly by Robert de Wateville and partly by Milo Crispin and its Domesday assets were, 1½ hides, part of a mill worth 2s,4 ploughs, woodland worth 30 hogs. The mansion at Chessington World of Adventures, known today as the Burnt Stub, was built in 1348. In the English Civil War it became a royalist stronghold and was razed to the ground by Oliver Cromwells Parliamentary forces, the site became an inn and was then rebuilt on a grander scale from the 18th century by the Vere Barker family in a Neo-Gothic Victorian style. The grounds were turned into a zoo in 1931 by Reginald Goddard, Chessington Zoo became part of the Tussauds Group in 1978 and is now operated as a theme park. Burnt Stub had no public access until 2003 when it became an attraction called Hocus Pocus Hall, Chessington Hall has a place in 18th-century literary history, as home of Samuel Crisp, a failed playwright and close friend of Fanny Burney. Chessington Road Recreation Ground was purchased on 16 October 1930 for £1,000, at 207 Hook Road is a Blue plaque commemorating the author Enid Blyton who lived at the address between 1920 and 1924. The former RAF Chessington Hospital, demolished in the 1990s, first opened as RAF Hook around 1938 as a barrage balloon depot and was operated by RAF Balloon Command. Enid Blyton, author of Noddy, the Secret Seven and the Famous Five, helen Chamberlain, TV presenter Petula Clark, singer from the 1960s George Cohen, member of the 1966 England World Cup-winning team. Harry Hawker, well known engineer, test pilot and racing driver, kelly Reilly, actress Tim Smith and Jim Smith, respectively singer/guitarist/composer and bass guitarist/backing singer in Cardiacs Sega Amusements Europe has its head office in Chessington. Chessington houses one of the Europes leading theme park resorts Chessington World of Adventures and this includes a zoo, a theme park, an aquarium and two four star hotels - the Safari Hotel and Azteca Hotel. In the grounds of the lies the historic Burnt Stub Mansion. Chessington Garden Centre is located in the south of the area near Malden Rushett, Chessington offers a range of countryside activities with many open spaces including the Chessington Countryside Walk in the London Green Belt. Chessington Wood, in the south of the area, contains the source of the Bonesgate Stream, the areas of Chessington have these names, Chessington North, also referred to as North Parade, immediately adjacent to Chessington North railway station
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New Malden
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New Malden is a suburb in south-west London, in the boroughs of Kingston and Merton, and is 9.4 miles from Charing Cross. Neighbouring localities are Kingston upon Thames, Raynes Park, Surbiton, Tolworth, Wimbledon, New Malden was established entirely as a result of the arrival of the railway when what is now called New Malden railway station was opened on 1 December 1846 on the main line from Waterloo. However, when Queen Victoria visited distinguished residents in the Coombe Hill area, building started slowly in the area just to the north of the station, gathering pace in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with two- and three-bedroom terraced houses. Further out are larger detached and semi-detached houses from the 1930s, the name of the road up the hill to Coombe, Traps Lane, is thought to derive from a farm owned by a Mrs Trap. Following the opening of the Kingston bypass in 1927, the farms to its south progressively gave way to suburban development. Two miles to the south is the village of Old Malden whose origins go back to Anglo-Saxon times. Under the District Councils Act 1895, The Maldens & Coombe Urban District Council was created, in 1936 Malden and Coombe was granted full Borough status, with its own Mayor, and had the rare distinction of a civic mace bearing the royal insignia of King Edward VIII. In 1965, the London Government Act 1963 came into force merging the boroughs of Malden & Coombe, New Malden is home to the offices of many large organisations, including Nestle Purina and Northrop Grumman. New Malden is bounded to the north by the affluent Coombe Hill and to the south and east by Raynes Park, Worcester Park and Tolworth. New Malden includes Motspur Park, home to the ground of Fulham Football Club and also the Kings College London sports ground. A minor tributary of the River Thames, Beverley Brook, flows through the east of the town, while its boundary is along the Hogsmill. The first parking meters were made in New Malden at Venners Ltd, in the 2001 census, some small areas of New Malden had Other Asian populations of over 25%, though no whole ward reached over 20%. Many of the Koreans living in New Malden work for Korean companies, in 2015 Paul Fischer of The Independent wrote that the North Koreans were insular, and that there were tensions between the South Korean majority and the North Koreans in New Malden. The New Malden area has Korean-language churches and nursery schools as well as restaurants, New Malden functions as the shopping and cultural centre for a Korean population spread more widely across South-West London and the neighbouring counties. The area has Korean supermarkets, about 20 Korean restaurants and cafes and it also has a noraebang, and many other shops. The Korean language is visible on several shop signs, the original Embassy of South Korea to the United Kingdom was in New Malden, before moving to 60 Buckingham Gate in Westminster. Many Koreans settled the New Malden in the 1970s due to the ambassadors location, a high proportion of the community are expatriate workers for Korean companies, who remain in the UK for a number of years before returning to Korea. Many work in finance and banking in the City of London, there is a newspaper published in New Malden, Free NK, which is opposed to the government of North Korea
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Tolworth
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Tolworth is a suburban area of southwest London in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, located 11 miles south west of Charing Cross. Neighbouring places include Long Ditton, New Malden, Kingston, Surbiton, Berrylands, Hinchley Wood, Chessington, Ewell, Surbiton is the nearest, about a mile north west. Tolworth is divided in two, with part of it to the east and part of it to the west of the Kingston by-pass, Tolworth, in the Domesday Book, was called Taleorde. Its Domesday assets were held partly by Picot from Richard de Tonebrige and it rendered, 2½ hides, also 4 hides with Long Ditton,1 mill without dues,8 ploughs, 10½ acres and ½ rod of meadow. The Evelyn family, who had settled in Surrey, played a prominent role and established mills at Tolworth. In 1870-72, John Marius Wilsons Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Tolworth like this, TALWORTH, an ancient manor-house here was held by the Earl of Kent, uncle of Edward III. and is now a farmhouse. With a proper sewerage system Tolworth was ready for development, St Matthew’s Church had been built for a congregation of 800 and trams now ran from the Red Lion. In 1919 the Medical Officer of Health reported that Surbiton was a neighbourhood with no dominating factories or works. The only new feature of late, he said, is the springing up of a few Motor Garages, each employing a few hands on the care and he advised that the Electric Light Works and a belated resuscitation of the Tolworth Brickfields represented the leading Works in Surbiton. In 1916 the council sold the Surbiton and District Electricity Co, based in Hollyfield Road, the opening of the Kingston by Pass in 1927 was a major catalyst for expansion which included six and a half miles of new residential roads, containing 2000 houses. This period also saw the construction of Tolworth Broadway, aligning with the Kingston Road, the Civil Defence Corps used to have a training site with a full-size mock-up of a bomb-damaged housing estate. This land has been reclaimed and is now a recreation ground, the Tolworth Brickworks Company Ltd. decided in September 1946 that the company should be voluntarily wound up – a process that continued until at least 1951. Dean Court and Drayton Court were constructed in 1959 on part of the Station Estate land, earlier plans had envisaged 6 semi detached and one detached house between the Toby Jug and Tolworth Station. During World War II a number of V1 flying bombs came down on Surbiton and Tolworth, the pub was burnt down in the 1950s. The shelter was removed after TfL decided that it was the bus stop they were not prepared to maintain. David Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars—Ronson, Bolder and it is reported that there was a Maestrovox Electronic Organ attached to the piano in the pub dining room and dance hall. Architecturally, Tolworth consists mainly of low-density 1930s semi-detached properties, and small to medium commercial, there is a concentration of industrial activity in an area bounded on the north by A3 London-to-Portsmouth trunk route, which runs through the area. The area is served by a branch railway line running from London Waterloo to Chessington South two stops to the south, with services run by South West Trains
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Worcester Park
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The area is 10.2 miles south-west of Charing Cross. The suburbs population was 16,031 at the time of the 2001 census, beverley Brook runs through Worcester Park, alongside Green Lane and past Green Lane Primary School, traversing up to Cuddington Recreation Ground. Green Lane appears in the Domesday Book, the Huntsmans Hall was situated on what was the far boundary of a hunting ground for Henry VIII. In 2011, around 78% of residents of Worcester Park ward were White, Worcester Park takes its name from the 4th Earl of Worcester, who was appointed Keeper of the Great Park in 1606. The area was part of the Great Park which covered around 1100 acres and was adjacent to the Little Park which contained Nonsuch Palace of Henry VIII. Both parks were used as deer parks. Henry VIII had obtained the land from Sir Richard de Codington, during the ownership by Sir Richard de Codington, there was a manor house on a site which was later replaced by Worcester House and is now the site of Worcester Close. There was also a church of St. Mary on roughly the site where the church of St Mary the Virgin, Cuddington. In 1809 Worcester Park was acquired by William Taylor and he used a mill on the banks of the Hogsmill Riverto continue the manufacture of gunpowder which had been carried out on and off in the area for several centuries. Manufacturing continued until the 1850s when the mill blew up, in 1890 Worcester Park Baptist Church was formed in Longfellow Road. It moved to its present location on The Avenue in the 1950s, Cheam Common Infants and Junior schools are pre-World War II school buildings. Air raid shelters were found underground during an extension to the building of the junior school. The school is located at the top of the high street, Blakesley School was a private primary school run by the Headmaster Eric Dudley. It closed in the summer of 1958, when the land was sold for housing. It occupied the land at grid reference TQ214654 bordered by the portion of Delta Road which was not surfaced, Delta Close. It occupied a plot of land and was a modern manor house style building referred to on local maps as Worcester Court. The surrounding wall is said to go back to Henry VIIIs reign and this headquarters was erected after the previous building was destroyed by arsonists and still serves the 2nd Cuddington Scout Group. In the 1950s, the ruins of an ornamental lake with a multi-arched bridge
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Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
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The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is an inner London borough of Royal borough status, to the west of the centre. As the smallest borough in London and the second smallest district in England, the borough is immediately to the west of the City of Westminster and to the east of London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It contains major museums and universities in Albertopolis, department stores such as Harrods, Peter Jones and Harvey Nichols and it is home to the Notting Hill Carnival, Europes largest. It contains many of the most expensive places in the world. The local authority is Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council, the boroughs motto is Quam Bonum in Unum Habitare, which can be roughly translated as How good to dwell in unity. The borough was created in 1965 from the boroughs of Kensington. Kensingtons Royal Borough status was inherited by the new borough, the new borough was originally to be called just Kensington – the inclusion of Chelsea was locally supported. Due to its high French population it has held the unofficial title of the 21st arrondissement of Paris. In 2005, the borough had more of its covered by domestic buildings than anywhere else in England at 19%. It also had the fifth highest proportion of land covered by buildings at 12%. As of 2010, statistics released by the Office for National Statistics showed that life expectancy at birth for females was 89.8 years in 2008–2010, male life expectancy at birth for the same period was 85.1 years. The figures in 1991–1993 were significantly lower,73.0 years for males and 80.0 for females, the borough has a higher proportion of high earners than any other local government district in the country. It has the highest proportion of workers in the financial sector, in December 2006, Sport England published a survey which showed that the boroughs residents were the fourth most active in England in sports and other fitness activities. 27. 9% of the population participate at least three times a week for 30 minutes, the top quarter earn at least £41 per hour, three and a half times the level of the lowest quarter at £12 per hour or less. Two of its more notable leaders were Nicholas Freeman, from 1977 until 1989. The Council has 42 Conservative,9 Labour and 3 Liberal Democrat councillors, the borough has combined a number of services and departments with its neighbours, Hammersmith & Fulham and Westminster City Council. Chelsea has less Underground access than Kensington, the station within Chelsea being Sloane Square. There are long-term plans for the Chelsea-Hackney line, with a station in the Kings Road near Chelsea Old Town Hall, buses Many London bus routes pass through the borough, most of them along Kings Road, Fulham Road, Kensington High Street and Ladbroke Grove