Trousers

Trousers (pants in North America) are an item of clothing worn from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately (rather than with cloth extending across both legs as in robes, skirts, and dresses).

In the UK the word "pants" generally means underwear and not trousers.Shorts are similar to trousers, but with legs that come down only to around the area of the knee, higher or lower depending on the style of the garment. To distinguish them from shorts, trousers may be called "long trousers" in certain contexts such as school uniform, where tailored shorts may be called "short trousers", especially in the UK.

In most of the Western world, trousers have been worn since ancient times and throughout the Medieval period, becoming the most common form of lower-body clothing for adult males in the modern world, although shorts are also widely worn, and kilts and other garments may be worn in various regions and cultures. Breeches were worn instead of trousers in early modern Europe by some men in higher classes of society. Since the mid-20th century, trousers have increasingly been worn by women as well. Jeans, made of denim, are a form of trousers for casual wear, now widely worn all over the world by both sexes. Shorts are often preferred in hot weather or for some sports and also often by children and teenagers. Trousers are worn on the hips or waist and may be held up by their own fastenings, a belt or suspenders (braces). Leggings are form-fitting trousers, of a clingy material, often knitted cotton and spandex (elastane).

Rotten and pocket boroughs

A rotten or pocket borough, more formally known as a nomination borough or proprietarial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom in existence prior to the Reform Act 1832 which had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain unrepresentative influence within the Unreformed House of Commons. The same terms were used for similar boroughs represented in the 18th century Parliament of Ireland.

Background

A parliamentary borough was a town which possessed a royal charter granting it incorporation and giving it the right to send two of its elected burgesses as members of Parliament to the House of Commons. It was not unusual for such a borough to change its boundaries as the town developed or contracted over time, in accordance for example with the state of its trade and industry, so that eventually the boundaries of the parliamentary borough and the physical settlement were no longer the same.

Rotten Borough (novel)

Rotten Borough (ISBN 0947795839) was a book published in 1937 by the British writer Oliver Anderson, using the pseudonym Julian Pine. Withdrawn soon after release, it was republished in 1989.

The book, a satirical novel based on the author's observations of life in the town of Grantham, where he was educated. On release, it caused a national controversy and threats of libel actions in Britain because of the perception that its characters were based on real people, including Lord Brownlow, a friend of King Edward VIII who had also served as mayor of Grantham. The book was withdrawn after three weeks.

The book received renewed public attention in the 1980s, because another character in the book, Councillor Nurture, was thought to be based on Alfred Roberts, the father of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, although Anderson denied this. The book was republished in 1989.

John Campbell, in his biography of Margaret Thatcher, described the novel as a dated and juvenile lampoon of small-town life, and believed that Councillor Nurture was actually based on Councillor Foster, another prominent Grantham councillor at the time.