Arbuthnott Commission Arbuthnott Commission The Arbuthnott Commission on Boundary Differences and Voting Systems was set up in July 2004 by Alistair Darling, then Secretary of State for Scotland, under the chairmanship of Sir John Arbuthnott, to examine various consequences of having four different electoral systems in Scotland, and different boundaries for constituencies of the House of Commons (Parliament of the United Kingdom, at Westminster) and the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood). In 2004, Scotland had three different electoral systems: plurality (first past the post) for Westminster and local government elections, and two different systems of proportional representation (PR) for European Parliament and Scottish Parliament
John Bull is a common sight in British editorial cartoons of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Singer David Bowie wore a coat in the style of Bull. Washington Irving described him in his chapter entitled "John Bull" from "The Sketch Book:" The cartoon image of stolid, stocky, conservative and well-meaning John Bull, dressed like an English country squire, sometimes explicitly contrasted with the conventionalised scrawny, French revolutionary "sans-culottes" Jacobin, was developed from about 1790 by British satirical artists James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank. (An earlier national personification was Sir Roger de Coverley, from a 1711 edition of "The Spectator.")