Parliament could burn down any day? Sell it. Turn it into a museum or a posh hotel.

Our political system is packed with unimaginative, cowardly morons, trapped in aspic.

BBC News, 21-May-2022.

Sell it.

Turn it into a museum or a posh hotel.

Move MPs to a new parliament outside London. Close Whitehall too, and move departments to the regions – Pensions in Portsmouth, Defence in Dunstable, Culture in Carlisle, Treasury in Tonypandy.

Selling those vastly expensive buildings in central London would raise tens of billions, maybe hundreds. That will pay for a new parliament in Leeds or Birmingham. It will MAKE money.

Want to “level up”? Spread power around the nation by splitting up government, and wealth will follow.

Want to solve transport? Spread government departments around the nation – they will fix transport in no time.

Want better job opportunities for the regions? All those government roles, everyone swirling around power ... they will live in Cannock now. They will demand better local schools.

Want to take the heat out of the London property market? Want to reduce crowding on the Tube? Want 200,000 new homes in the capital? Move parliament. 200,000 people will move with it. And there will be a huge new tourist attraction too. New jobs. New homes. Less expense.

Want better regional representation? You will get it if all government, finance, and opportunities aren’t in a 2 square mile bit of London.

Want to modernise politics and make parliament work? It won’t happen if we cling to Westminster’s ludicrous nostalgia-fest. Scrap it and start again.

It is absolutely ridiculous that the only ‘solution’ being discussed is spending £13 billion (which will undoubtedly be 3 times that by the time it is done) to maintain a building and process that hasn’t worked for half a century.

“Oh no, what about all the wasteful spending?”

You think there isn’t waste in Whitehall?

“Oh no, it will make government inefficient.”

You think the government isn’t inefficient now? You think they don’t phone people in the room downstairs? What is the difference if they are in Lincoln or Bolton?

Our political system is packed with unimaginative, cowardly morons, trapped in aspic.

— AUTHOR —

▫ Russell Jones, Writer, designer, data analyst.
► twitter
► website

• Russell Jones is also the author of The Decade in Tory

Sources

• Text: This piece was first published as a Twitter thread and turned into the above article on 21 May 2022 with the purpose of reaching a larger audience. It has been minorly edited and corrected, and published with the author’s consent. | The author of the tweets writes in a personal capacity.
• Cover: Unsplash/Federico Di Dio photography. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)