Talk:Wantage (UK Parliament constituency)

Didcot
"Didcot, which grew up around the railway when Brunel put his London to Bristol line through Didcot instead of Abingdon" - er, do you have a source for that? MacDermot's History of the Great Western Railway doesn't mention any London-Bristol route via Abingdon - although some early schemes did take in Wantage and/or Wallingford. The route rejected by Brunel was via Newbury, Hungerford, Devizes, Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon. Abingdon was certainly considered as a route for the Oxford branch, and if so built, the junction for that would have been at or near Steventon. As is well known, the Oxford line as built passes well to the east of Abingdon, with the junction being constructed at Didcot in 1844 - it was then that Didcot began to expand, there being no station between Moulsford and Steventon prior to 1844. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Defection to Labour
"Jackson was deemed unlikely to be re-elected in Wantage as a Labour MP, so he did not stand at the 2005 general election." My memory is that Robert Jackson had announced his intention to stand down at the 2005 election well before announcing his intention to cross the floor. Ed Vaizey was already in place as heir apparant.Nickpheas (talk) 13:58, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * "Deemed" in the context seems totally misplaced. But it could be that Blair or the party chairman leaned on him not to cause any embarrassment by actually standing for the party, in their view, sounds intriguing, but more likely sensationalist.-  Adam37   Talk  15:44, 30 April 2017 (UTC)