How Tory Leader Is Chosen

choi

Briefing: The British constitution | The Referendum and the Damage Done. Britain needs a robust constitution now more than ever. Which is a pity. Economist, June 1, 2019
https://www.economist.com/briefi ... ritish-constitution

Quote:

"AT SOME POINT in June or July roughly 124,000 people in Britain can expect to receive a ballot paper in the post. It will offer them the names of two Conservative MPS [plural of MP, member of parliament]. The one they select will, shortly thereafter, enter 10 Downing Street as prime minister. The rest of Britain's 66m inhabitants will have no say whatsoever.  Britain has changed prime ministers without elections many times before [because the leader of a ruling party automatically becomes prime minister].  

"Previously the new [party] leader would have been picked by elected by elected MPS. But since 1998 the role of Tory party's MPS has been to whittle the candidate list down to two. Unless one of those two then withdraws (as was the case when Mrs [Theresa] May was elected) the final choice will be left to the membership [of the (Tory) party], A group of people more likely to be of pensionable age than not, more than two-thirds male just half the size of Wolverhampton and far less ethnically diverse has become Britain's electoral college. 'It's weird, isn't it,' says Shaun Gunner, one of the party's younger members/ 'My family and friends don't get to choose the prime minister. And I do.'

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b)
(i) Wolverhampton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverhampton
(in the West Midlands county; At the 2011 census, it had a population of 249,470; section 1 Toponym: from the Anglo-Saxon Wulfrūnehēantūn ("Wulfrūn's high or principal enclosure or farm") )
(ii) The English and Scottish surname Hampton is from "any of the numerous places called Hampton, including the cities of Southampton and Northampton (both of which were originally simply Hamtun). These all share the final Old English element tun enclosure, settlement, but the first is variously ham homestead, hamm water meadow, or hean, weak dative case (originally used after a preposition and article) of heah high." Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press.