Talk:Acton (UK Parliament constituency)

February 1974 result - was it technically a Conservative gain or a hold?
While it is true that at the February 1974 general election, George Young won the seat for the Conservative Party, defeating the previous Labour MP for Acton Nigel Spearing I am not sure it is appropriate to call this a Conservative gain. The 1974 boundaries were not the same as when Spearing regained the seat for Labour at the 1970 general election and it is difficult to be sure that the Conservatives would not have won the seat in 1970 if the 1974 boundaries had been used. It would be normal to compare the result on new boundaries with the notional, rather than the actual, result for the previous election ,and in a case like this it would be more common not to record the seat as a gain, but simply describe it as a Conservative win. Indeed the only seat that the Times Guide to the House of Commons for the February 1974 election records as a Conservative gain from Labour is Berwick and East Lothian suggesting it considered Acton as notionally Conservative. It also is worth noting that it categorises Acton as a seat with Major boundary changes. Dunarc (talk) 23:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Components
There should be a divide on 1965 (when the MB was incorporated into the LB Hillingdon). Jackiespeel (talk) 20:28, 22 January 2021 (UTC)