Friday 24 October 2008

Where Should The House of Commons Sit?

While they sort out the asbestos, I mean.

And why?

I suppose that it might sit in the mornings and the Lords in the same chamber in the afternoons, or vice versa.

And I did think that it might go on tour. But then, where would put up with the enormous, lavish "security" of the thing? Where would want its vast army of self-important hangers-on despoiling the bars and the restaurants? And how many MPs would even turn up if it sat outside the West End? (Still, perhaps not that much fewer than at present, which isn't exactly saying a lot.)

So maybe it could meet in the Lords chamber while the Lords went on tour? The Lords has become a far more Londonised House since Blair removed most the hereditaries and took to handing out peerages in the streets of the achingly faaaashionable metropolitan neighbourhoods. But most of "Tony's Cronies" rarely or never turn up, anyway. They just use the title to secure the best tables and that sort of thing.

Furthermore, if the Lords went on tour, then, unlike if the Commons did so, those who went (and not least, those who were taken by their schools) to see it would witness the things that one might naturally associate with Parliament: proper questions, and debates properly so called, and even - brace yourself - votes. Yes, votes. They still happen in the Lords. What an absurd anachronism it clearly is.

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