Room at the inn

[pozorvlak]

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith MP, is currently on the radio arguing that she shouldn't have to resign over a £10 expense claim for porn films for her husband. In my view, she's quite correct: she shouldn't have to resign over such a trivial thing. She should be beheaded and have her head impaled on a spike on Westminster Bridge for her

Comments

[ext_5743]

Even better, why not just buy a second-hand cruise liner or prison ship, moor it next to the Palace of Westmister and turn it into accomodation for MPs...

[totherme]

Or they could take a leaf out of the BBC's book, and move westminster to the North.

Cheaper accommodation, stimulate the ecconomy, all that sort of thing.

They could even make the commons a touring event, like in The Merlin Conspiracy.

New wormcan

[ext_5743]

Of course, there's something to be said for a proper Federal UK, with a federal parliament in a capital outside London. Since the geographic centre of the UK is in Lancashire, how about making Preston the new federal capital?

Re: New wormcan

[susannahf]

Speaking as someone who comes from nearby, I would answer that question with "Because it's a dump". There are pretty bits nearby though, and the housing is cheap and plentiful.
Seriously, they invented motorways so that people could avoid Preston ;)

Re: New wormcan

[ext_5743]

Well, perhaps it would be less of a dump once it became capital...

It's got lots going for it, not least the West Coast Main Line: 2hrs to London, 2.5hrs to Glasgow, 3.5hrs to Cardiff, 5hrs to Aberdeen, 7.5 to Penzance. Wharton could be upgraded to a proper airport and you'd have Ryanair flights to Belfast.

And then perhaps we might have sensible politics at a federal level, leaving the Westminster bear-pit just to run England.

[totherme]

I still like the idea of a touring house of commons.

There could even be a percentage of votes given over to locals (folk on the local electoral roll) who show up to the meetings. Might add an interesting element of timing to the politics of proposing a bill :)

[ext_5743]

Europe currently has a mobile parliament, and everyone hates having to pack up and move to Strasbourg.

[necaris]

Although that's because Strasbourg is completely pointless, and for political reasons they *have* to up and move at arbitrary points during the legislative session.

If the Commons moved from, say, London → Edinburgh → Cardiff → Belfast, that'd be *much* more interesting...

[green_jedi]

No no no no, please not this - as http://www.randominformation.co.uk/writings/ said, the European Parliament in Strasbourg is a wonderful example of how wasteful and stupid this is. Parliaments, like most bureaucracies, need a lot of infrastructure to function, infrastructure which would need to be duplicated at every location. Plus the expense of moving all those people (remember each MP probably has a dozen direct and indirect support staff), and the time wasted during those moves.

Just pick one location and stick with it. Or, even better, don't move at all, or risk becoming like Dodoma, the "capital" of Tanzania, moved there by Nyerere in an effort to promote federalism and decentralisation. It remains a backwater dump to this day, with Dar Es Salaam remaining the de facto capital.

[pozorvlak]

I love the prison ship idea.