Metaphor
December 1, 2017 2:16 AM   Subscribe

'A tale of decay': the Houses of Parliament are falling down As politicians dither over repairs, the risk of fire, flood or a deluge of sewage only increases. But fixing the Palace of Westminster might change British politics for good – which is the last thing many of its residents want. Behind the scenes in Britain's crumbling Houses of Parliament – in pictures
posted by fearfulsymmetry (98 comments total) 30 users marked this as a favorite
 
There's a point in the article where they say something like 'if MPs moved to a parliament where everybody got a seat they might not want to come back', at which point I felt like the best idea might be to convert the entire building into deluxe flats and move parliament to Luton (or wherever) because my representative in the democratic system should have a bloody chair.
posted by The River Ivel at 2:23 AM on December 1, 2017 [35 favorites]


Shetland to London is like 600 miles... I think it's the longest equivalent distance in Western Europe. Also the UK is the most capital-centric country in terms of economy, institutions etc.

It's long past time to build a new parliament somewhere nearer to the center of country that's fit for the 21C not the 19th and sell off Westminster as a combined museum/conference center/hotel.

Of course this will never happen... where might it end, the end of monarchy?! the end class privilege via the public school system?! A modern sensible country not mired in it's imagined past glories??!!?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:46 AM on December 1, 2017 [19 favorites]


As politicians dither over repairs, the risk of fire, flood or a deluge of sewage only increases.

The Houses of Parliament as the best metaphor for the political establishment it contains, there.

(Edited to add that I only saw the thread title after I made the comment and now feel slightly foolish. Perhaps I need more coffee, and less reality.)
posted by Grangousier at 2:50 AM on December 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


There's a significant overlap between those politicians who are arguing that the experts are wrong and evacuation of Parliament is unnecessary and those politicians who think Brexit is a good idea.
posted by Eleven at 2:57 AM on December 1, 2017 [15 favorites]


Sounds like if Parliament doesn't vote to do the work, the place will probably burn to the ground, putting a finish to that problem, and presenting another.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:28 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


If Parliament decamped to Dewsbury or Hull or Lancaster or somewhere nearer the geographical middle of the UK, suddenly the whole north/south affluence gap that was behind the Brexit protest vote might become impossible for the London/Home Counties contingent in the Commons to ignore. So I'm guessing that's not going to happen.
posted by cstross at 3:32 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Something like a converted Travelodge near East Midlands Airport would be a good choice, I think, for a new Parliament building, with the Palace of Westminster then available for repurposing as a Harry Potter-themed tourist attraction.
posted by misteraitch at 4:14 AM on December 1, 2017 [23 favorites]


There is nothing more British than horrifying cable management and shoddy decrepit building. I'm surprised they didn't having a picture showing that the fusebox for the house of parliment had concrete and wire fuses.
posted by srboisvert at 4:14 AM on December 1, 2017 [11 favorites]


Every hour of every day, four or five members of the fire-safety team are patrolling the palace, hunting for flames.

The world in 2017
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:18 AM on December 1, 2017 [31 favorites]


I am 100% behind moving parliament somewhere not in London.

The London centricness of the UK is super dumb (and I say this as someone who lives and works in London).
I would ideally be in favour of building a giant new Administrative / Travel hub somewhere near birmingham (It's the Population centre point of the UK.

A giant airport (close heathrow down and replace with a six runway hub airport), Train station, road nexus and all of the offices and debating halls and flats (Each constituency owns a flat, MPs get to live there, no need for second home expenses) needed for all government business.
Increase the number of MPs to 1 MP per 50000 people.
An elected lords.
A nice circular House of Commons / Lords with a seat and desk for every constituency assigned at random so that you don't have two sides shouting at each other.

These and many other great ideas soon to come as part of my "I should be King of the world forever" Manifesto.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:20 AM on December 1, 2017 [37 favorites]




I don't know what it says about me but the most shocking thing I read was the detail that the tea in the peers' dining room was improperly made (unless “stewed tea” means something else than bitter tea in British English). Having stepped inside a building in the UK, I’m aware that housing construction in the country leaves something to be desired. But I would’ve expected that the House of Lords could provide its members with properly made tea.
posted by Kattullus at 4:35 AM on December 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


The centroid of this island is Bradford. It isn't, but let's say it is. Close to the financial centres of Leeds, the cultural centres of Manchester. Heavy and light industry. Harrogate is the porn downloading capital of western Europe. We are within easy commuting distance of the major interests of the entire cabinet office.

Everything's boarded up too so the rent is basically free by comparison.
posted by vbfg at 4:46 AM on December 1, 2017 [10 favorites]


I read this article on the commute this morning and was rapt throughout - it's a great piece of writing and really clearly sets out the issues and complexities. I work in a similarly creaking but much better managed Landmark Building and recognise much about the difficulty in practical upkeep but much more importantly this piece brilliantly speaks to how the 'theatre of politics' has moved beyond romanticism to straight up fetish and is veering frighteningly into cargo cultism.

Demanding the psychological safety afforded by 'tradition' and 'ritual' for the governing elite whilst comprehensively destroying the economic and social stability of huge swathes of the populace is the height of folly. I'm well-up for preserving history, but absolutely not for the purpose of perpetuating historical practice.

Let it die. Long live the new order.
posted by freya_lamb at 4:52 AM on December 1, 2017 [12 favorites]


Genuine question - where has this idea that buildings in the UK are poor quality come from?

My entirely anecdotal experience (whilst living in the US) was that it was the sheer horror at our lack of mixer taps.
posted by garius at 4:52 AM on December 1, 2017 [26 favorites]


the tea in the peers' dining room was improperly made (unless “stewed tea” means something else than bitter tea in British English)

That is what stewed tea means, and that is properly made. Tea should be bitter and strong. Wouldn't bother with milk otherwise.


Genuine question - where has this idea that buildings in the UK are poor quality come from?

The fact that they are? Doorways and windows not properly square, with big gaps around doors as a result (and an excess of polyfiller around windows). Windows universally either cheap PVC rubbish or single-glazed. Utterly inadequate insulation in exterior walls or under ceilings. Central heating with a single thermostat for the entire house (because there'll never be temperature differences between rooms!) and all the radiators on a single circuit. Just general shoddiness everywhere, with respect to everything: things being poorly done, with lacking workmanship, and with inadequate solutions widely considered good enough. And I'm talking about new builds. Sure, you see this kind of stuff elsewhere - I've seen similarly sloppy work in provincial China - but not in the rest of Northern Europe. The standards of building in Scandinavia and Germany, for example, are just not comparable. It makes the UK looks like a third world country.
posted by Dysk at 5:05 AM on December 1, 2017 [17 favorites]


FTA:
Conservative backbencher Sir Edward Leigh told me that in his mind the building is inextricably linked with British freedom. “We are the only important country in Europe that has never been a police state, never had a police state imposed on us. [...]
[citation needed], unless he means that "we" are not in fact an "important" country.
posted by runcifex at 5:12 AM on December 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


Given how willing MPs seem to be to burn down their country through their own indecisiveness and blinkered attachment to the past, it's no surprise that they're willing to risk them same fate for their workplace. Or, yes: Metaphor.

But it's so ridiculously shortsighted. All that stuff about losing the little traditions and disrupting the culture of the place: yes, yes, but that will all be gone in an instant when the place goes up like a candle and you're all forced to decamp to a marquee in Hyde Park surrounded by portaloos. Taking forty years to renovate so that you can stay put while it happens just drags out the risk that the building will burn down.

Just move out, recreate your traditions wherever you move to so that you don't forget them, and then move back in six years later. Glasgow and Edinburgh each survived three-year refurbishments of their main museums in recent years, and the people of each city went right back to loving them after they reopened.
posted by rory at 5:18 AM on December 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


The horrible Grenfell Tower fire is a data point for poor building standards.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:19 AM on December 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


Dysk: That is what stewed tea means, and that is properly made. Tea should be bitter and strong. Wouldn't bother with milk otherwise.

That’s a bit like saying all food should be served burnt, otherwise what would be the point of sauce. Nothing wrong with preferring bitter tea or burnt food, of course.
posted by Kattullus at 5:27 AM on December 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


Sure, moving it somewhere else altogether would be refreshing, but this is the country that wouldn't even ditch first-past-the-post when offered an obvious, undeniable improvement. It will never, ever, ever be anywhere other than Westminster. When Westminster is underwater in 2117, MPs will travel by barge from their offices in Richmond and descend via the Parliamentary lift through the David Cameron Memorial Bubble into the preserved Houses of Parliament, there to deliberate on the great matters of the United Kingdom of England and Wales while porpoises glide serenely past its windows.
posted by rory at 5:31 AM on December 1, 2017 [27 favorites]


That’s a bit like saying all food should be served burnt, otherwise what would be the point of sauce.

Not quite. (British style) tea is bitter, and complaining about that makes no more sense than complaining about coffee being bitter. In both cases, it's half the point.
posted by Dysk at 5:35 AM on December 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


> All that stuff about losing the little traditions and disrupting the culture of the place: yes, yes, but that will all be gone in an instant when the place goes up like a candle
"The palace going up like a candle" is part of the culture and tradition.
posted by runcifex at 5:36 AM on December 1, 2017 [10 favorites]


this reminds me of the years of debate preceeding the currently ongoing renovation of the Austrian Parliament building here in Vienna. It is about 130 years old, and the roof leaked, the electric wiring was problematic etc.
If you want o know more, they even published a brochure in English (as parliament is a tourist sight).
The plenary sessions and offices etc are all moved to the surrounding buildings, and two new temporary structures were erected for office space .
There is a website (in German only) with various infos, eg the text of the layw passed in 2014 to enable the buidling to be renovated,and of course photos.
posted by 15L06 at 5:37 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Harrogate is the porn downloading capital of western Europe.

Tory wankers.
posted by biffa at 5:46 AM on December 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


"The palace going up like a candle" is part of the culture and tradition.

The Turner reprise.
posted by rory at 6:05 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


I cringe whenever I see the pointless pomp of Parliament on TV. It is embarrassing, particularly now, and makes the country look like a museum, when we need to be looking to the future. The Scottish parliament get things done without so much of the impenetrable jargon and arcane ceremony.

Absolutely!
Some, I'm fine with like referring comments to the speaker and addressing members by constituency name. That's fine.
But stuff like always referring to the house of lords as "The other place". Grow up. Call it by its name.
The stupid black rod ceremony which involves slamming the door in their face to emphasise parliament's independence from the monarchy, uuuurgh. Awful.
The MP Kidnapping.
The Mace (if it's not in the room then your laws aren't legal)
The new Speaker being "Dragged" to the chair.
All of it, dumb, stupid tradition.
Grow up.

As Mhairi Black put it "Westminster has to choose between being a museum or a functional parliament because it is constantly swinging between the two, and quite often they are at odds".
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:11 AM on December 1, 2017 [11 favorites]


Sure, they can legislate at their palace in London, but can they legislate on a cold rainy day in Stoke?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:24 AM on December 1, 2017 [15 favorites]


The Houses of Parliament as the best metaphor for the political establishment it contains, there.

I thought it a bit too heavy-handed myself.
posted by acb at 6:25 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


the tea in the peers' dining room was improperly made (unless “stewed tea” means something else than bitter tea in British English)

That is what stewed tea means, and that is properly made. Tea should be bitter and strong. Wouldn't bother with milk otherwise.


Rumour in Vienna has it that what the Austrian parliamentarians like best about their "Ausweichquartier" (newly erected office buildings) is apparently the espresso coffee machines there, as opposed to filter coffee that was available in the old building, made in percolators from the 80s (1980s, not 1880s). Got to have the right priorities.

Also, the renovation was turned into a source of revenue, the furniture was auctioned off, you could buy your member's seat , some obviously more used than others, and tea caddies.

The sale brought over 200 000 Euro.
posted by 15L06 at 6:26 AM on December 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Maybe they could rent one of those enormous mansions that have been bought by Russian oligarchs, where they have dug out the enormous multi-level basements, to use while they refurbish their building?

Genuine question - where has this idea that buildings in the UK are poor quality come from?

Purely anecdotally, every time I have stayed there, the accommodations have been "interesting." Things like heating, hot water, and electrical have all been quirky, which is maybe inevitable when the building is old and renovations have been intermittent and often DIY. But from the outside, it seems like people are willing to tolerate that kind of quirkiness rather than expecting things to work right. As noted, Scandinavia also has lots of old buildings, but they are generally warm inside and the hot water works.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:27 AM on December 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


The London centricness of the UK is super dumb (and I say this as someone who lives and works in London).
I would ideally be in favour of building a giant new Administrative / Travel hub somewhere near birmingham (It's the Population centre point of the UK.


I was thinking Crewe a while ago. It's close to the geographic centroid, and also within a shout of the Welsh and Scottish borders and, for while Northern Ireland remains in the union, the Irish Sea, and has a major railway junction. When Britain is belatedly formally federalised, a chunk around it could be hewn out, ceasing to be England in the same way that the Australian Capital Territory is not New South Wales, becoming a federal administrative district.
posted by acb at 6:30 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Genuine question - where has this idea that buildings in the UK are poor quality come from?

Its from an assessment of the housing stock. The UK has a very slow turnover of buildings compared to the rest of Europe (~1% p.a.) which means we have a lot of older buildings of poor quality and with poor energy efficiency. Many of these have been retrofitted to some extent but poor efficiency remains.
posted by biffa at 6:31 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


On the upside: we win at quaintness.
posted by acb at 6:35 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


When Australia made Canberra its new capital, a provisional parliament house was built. Well, we got around to it 27 years after Federation. Close enough. It was intended to be used for at most 50 years, but we stretched it to 61. The old place is now the Museum of Australian Democracy. Well, one of them.
posted by zamboni at 6:42 AM on December 1, 2017


"The palace going up like a candle" is part of the culture and tradition.

Perhaps they should formalise it? Build a Parliament every N years out of wood, use it, and then at the end of the term, ceremonially torch it and make it a joyous national spectacle, broadcast live on the BBC and commemorated with funny hats and Snapchat filters and such. It'd be like a cross between those Japanese Shintō shrines that have been destroyed and rebuilt every 20 years for the past millennium and The Wicker Man.
posted by acb at 6:43 AM on December 1, 2017 [16 favorites]


Purely anecdotally, every time I have stayed there, the accommodations have been "interesting."

Yes, but beware generalising from tourist experience. I've stayed in plenty of well dodgy B&Bs in Britain, because for a long time as a tourist and then a new immigrant exploring the country I was looking for the cheapest I could find. When my budget improved a bit, I started finding much nicer ones. When I travel for work and end up in Premier Inns and the like, they're just as polished-bland-modern as any equivalent elsewhere in Europe.
posted by rory at 6:46 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


All of it, dumb, stupid tradition.
Grow up.


Tradition isn't always dumb and stupid. It's also the texture of life.

Sure, some traditions will disappear or change over time, but a parliament with all the tradition and oddness stripped away would have all the excitement of a board meeting. Without the drama, the media might pay even less attention to what happens there, and then governments could slip all sorts of dodginess past us.

Even countries with (relatively) shiny new chambers have odd parliamentary traditions. Some of them inherited from Westminster.
posted by rory at 6:59 AM on December 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


That’s a bit like saying all food should be served burnt, otherwise what would be the point of sauce.

Not quite. (British style) tea is bitter, and complaining about that makes no more sense than complaining about coffee being bitter. In both cases, it's half the point.


That is simply. not. true. unless you're oversteeping. It's like saying that British style vegetables are supposed to be overcooked until nearly gray. One can get an nice high tannin malty Assam that holds up well to milk without cooking the leaves. That's true both for whole leaf tea and for the broken leaf CTC style that most Brits prefer for an even stronger cup. Builder's brew is not something you should be aiming for. If think "British style" tea is bitter, you're likely just doing it wrong.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:06 AM on December 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


It'd be like a cross between those Japanese Shintō shrines that have been destroyed and rebuilt every 20 years for the past millennium and The Wicker Man.

"And now we see the members drag the new speaker to his chair of wicker, to be set alight by the cabinet, while they sing the parliamentary anthem 'Sumer Is Icumen In'..."
posted by rory at 7:09 AM on December 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


I don't think there is a particular quality concern with UK buildings compared to elsewhere.

I've lived in 3 countries and probably at least 30 different apartments at this point. The three worst were all 3 that I lived in while I lived in England for 8 years. They were also ranked 2-4 in terms of cost.

There was a Victorian red brick house that had no ground insulation at all - freezing fucking floors all winter despite the temp rarely dipping below 0C, a newly built kitchen addition that had a crooked window resulting in an 1 inch gap in the window (and also no heat at all), a leaky roof that had water pouring out the recessed light fixtures if the wind was blowing strongly the wrong way.

There was the terrace flat that had walls so thin I could hear my quiet little eighty year old pensioner neighbour burp and then giggle and whisper "oh my!" to herself. The windows were so drafty that the curtains would blow about 6 feet away from the window. And it had concrete and wire fuses despite being built in the 70's! The second floor had about a six inch sag in the back half of flat and felt so unstable I always expected it to collapse when I walked on it. The backyard wood fence blew over 3 times in 1 year.

Then the final straw was a brand new build on the high street where nothing at all worked and the exterior design (feature a large turret!) was such that it functioned like an ear horn funneling all the high street noise into our apartment. The hot water heater cut out every single time we used hot water and the repairmen couldn't fix it because they apparently didn't even know that hot water heaters had cutout fuses and they just kept cranking the heat on the thing making the problem worse. 3 different guys. Working on what is really a bomb in people's living spaces they had no clue! I ended up reading the manual on the thing and then calling them and telling them what was wrong before they properly fixed it. The electrical in the entire place was run through just two fuses dispute having a modern fuse box and more outlets than I had ever had anywhere before ( I was very excited by this when we moved in until I found out I could only run 2 things at a time before blowing a fuse).

I had friends who bought a gorgeous Victorian home and when they were showing it off after moving in I asked if I could see the wiring. They popped open a door on the second floor and there was a giant cable spider suspended in mid-air with wiring running in all directions some with frayed insulation that looked like pre-war and many connections with exposed twisted copper. They said "Oh god" and closed the door. So a home that cost almost a million USD at the time and it didn't have a home inspection yet got a nice hefty mortgage and presumably insurance despite being a incredible risk for a fire.

My time in England gave me a really healthy appreciation for the incredible value of the building codes, professional standards, regulations and best practice constructions techniques of North America.

I can admire the grace and latitude of English culture where there is a lot of space, tolerance and understanding that things often are not going to be perfect and that sometimes perfection is not necessary and the comfort that can grant one when relaxing in the pub at the end of a working day.

But it was awful to live in the consequences of that more relaxed cheap and cheerful make do approach.

*I recognize my experiences are anecdata and that I lived in Birmingham rather than the wealthy city/state of London so your mileage+congestion charges may vary.
posted by srboisvert at 7:13 AM on December 1, 2017 [19 favorites]


They changed the rules so that you no longer have to wear a top hat to raise a point of order during a division... they could quite easily get rid of all the other rigmarole without the world coming to an end.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:14 AM on December 1, 2017


Build a Parliament every N years out of wood, use it, and then at the end of the term, ceremonially torch it and make it a joyous national spectacle, broadcast live on the BBC and commemorated with funny hats and Snapchat filters and such.

Given the current high regard that constituents have for their MPs, I worry that the schedule would be more like that of the Gävle Goat.
posted by zamboni at 7:19 AM on December 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


It's like saying that British style vegetables are supposed to be overcooked until nearly gray

Well, if it wasn't at least somewhat true, Pedro Carolino's seminal Portuguese-English phrasebook wouldn't have included “vegetables boiled to a pap” in its section on useful phrases for ordering food in England. And that was back in the 19th century.
posted by acb at 7:22 AM on December 1, 2017


Harrogate is the porn downloading capital of western Europe.

Particularly relevant right now.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 7:27 AM on December 1, 2017


Isn't there a perfectly nice, overpriced and overdesigned parliament building at Holyrood already? Why don't they just move there? Balmoral is just a stone's throw away, too.
posted by fregoli at 7:29 AM on December 1, 2017


I can admire the grace and latitude of English culture where there is a lot of space, tolerance and understanding that things often are not going to be perfect

I think they saw you coming, son.
posted by Segundus at 7:32 AM on December 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


I've lived in 3 countries and probably at least 30 different apartments at this point. The three worst were all 3 that I lived in while I lived in England for 8 years.

srboisvert, to someone who has lived in London, that all sounds all too familiar. There was the hastily renovated sharehouse in Camden, where the room was an odd shape, and the acoustics meant that the youths who gathered to drink, fight and banter in the alley behind the building every night sounded menacingly close to the first-floor window. There was the flat I ended up buying a UPS for because the mains would interrupt at odd times. There was the flat above the kebab shop, which would fill with a greasy nidor at around midnight each day, and whose bedroom window was not advisable to open because the shop's vent pointed right at it. I ended up buying a sequence of air purifiers and the first air conditioner I ever owned, despite having migrated from Australia, to mitigate things. And, of course, there's postal addresses. Having an address one can rely on things larger than a letter arriving at seems to be the exception, rather than the rule, in England, partly because in the deregulated landscape, living spaces are partitioned in creatively irregular ways.

Until I moved to England, I would not have believed that a room could be both too hot and too cold at the same time.
posted by acb at 7:35 AM on December 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


Conservative backbencher Sir Edward Leigh told me that in his mind the building is inextricably linked with British freedom. “We are the only important country in Europe that has never been a police state, never had a police state imposed on us.

I'll take "Bloody Mary" for 200, Alex.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:46 AM on December 1, 2017 [8 favorites]


I have a cunning plan:
1. Sell the current Houses of Parliament to Lake Havasu City, Arizona
2. Build New And Improved Houses of Parliament. Maybe add room for an extra House, in case you decide to have another one later on.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:50 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Isn't there a perfectly nice, overpriced and overdesigned parliament building at Holyrood already? Why don't they just move there? Balmoral is just a stone's throw away, too.

Er, because we’re already using it? Or should devolution end to facilitate some repairs down south?
posted by Happy Dave at 7:59 AM on December 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


However, when you get to the point of "let's build Parliament in Crewe" then why not go the whole hog and build a new town, like Canberra or Brasilia? The empty land to the south and east of Crewe would be ideal, and the existing station and planned HS2 hub are also on that side of town.

You would largely have to, I suspect. Wherever the legislative body is, the senior members of the civil service will also want to be -- if the budget committee is deciding whether to cut money from the Ministry of Dogs or the Department for Cats and the Chief Civil Servant* of Cats is in the room purring winsomely while her counterpart in the Ministry of Dogs is on a shoddy Skype connection, the MoD is in trouble.

If an MP wants to make an inquiry about the new High Speed Dog project and how it will affect his constituents, then Chief Civil Servant of Dogs will want his underling, the Head of Dog Planning who is heading the project up around. She in turn will often be meeting with her direct reports, and they want to be near their boss. And so on. So the entire top chunk of the bureaucracy will follow the politicians, if not because they work directly with MPs, but even at a couple of steps of remove. And they will want their staffs with them.

* This title varies widely from country to country; it's Deputy Minister here in Canada (the Minister is the elected cabinet minister), Permanent Secretary in the UK, Departmental Secretary in Australia. There aren't really similar positions in the US, where the entire upper leadership of a department are political appointees.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 8:09 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I wonder how much of the resistance is also created by the people who are like “we can’t wait to move away from Westminster and make things more modern.” Like, maybe they would be able to move somewhere else and keep the traditions, and then when they got back to Westminster argue about the traditions themselves, but because some people see it as an opportunity and others see it as a risk it can never get done.
posted by corb at 8:13 AM on December 1, 2017


Have you folks ever been on a tour of the place? It's like a cramped cut-rate boarding school where the fussy in-jokes and traditions are about the overthrow of nations. Also the house of lords is laid out like a shoe store with a throne at one end.
I cycle past the place on my way to work and the charm wore off quickly. It's just a victorian folly they happen to hold meetings in. It's a gaudy gothic-revival façade on an old palace.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 8:15 AM on December 1, 2017 [10 favorites]


“Wives of peers’ eldest sons,” reads one notice, “and married daughters of peers and peeresses in their own right, before taking a place in the peers’ married daughters’ box, are requested to leave their names with the doorkeeper at the brass gates.”

I mean. I suppose it should come as no great surprise that this was actually one of the most understandable of the arcane rules and regulations mentioned in the article once you come to realize that this whole building (and perhaps country even?) seems to be playing Calvinball as much as they are fixing things.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:23 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


One can get an nice high tannin malty Assam that holds up well to milk without cooking the leaves.

Right, but "high tannin" means it is bitter without overcooking the leaves. Compare this to the terrible tea (and brewing methods) that's endemic to much of the rest of Europe, and you'll see that British tea is very bitter by comparison - because a lot of the rest of it isn't bitter at all.

Builder's brew is not something you should be aiming for.

Of course not. That would imply sugar.
*spits*

posted by Dysk at 8:28 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Crumbling parliament buildings are a tradition everywhere. Canada is finally getting around to completely renovating our crumbling pile, and the House of Commons and Senate will be moved to temporary chambers which are under construction at the West Block and Government Conference Centre.

Now we just need to do something about our Prime Minister's official residence, 24 Sussex Drive. It is in such dire condition that it has been a national joke for years. When Stephen Harper left office Justin Trudeau moved into Rideau Cottage instead so it could be fixed up. Two years later, and still no progress or decisions have been made on renovating or replacing that dump.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:34 AM on December 1, 2017


It's all very well to say "move MPs out of Westminster and build a new parliament building in Swindon" (or wherever). The problem, which this article fails to address, is that Parliament is inextricably connected to the executive and civil service. Every day ministers are shuttling between Whitehall and Westminster: to speak in debates, to vote, to attend select committees, to meet constituents. This isn't just ceremonial. It's a crucial part of Parliament's function in holding the executive to account.

So if you move Parliament to Swindon, what do you do with the rest of government? Do you move that to Swindon as well? If so, you're looking at a huge project that's likely to run into tens of billions of pounds. Or do you move Parliament and leave the rest of government where it is? If so, you're asking ministers to spend hours each week commuting between Parliament and Whitehall, with all that that entails (travel expenses, wasted time, exhaustion). You're also sending out a signal that the 'real' business of running the country takes place in Whitehall, and that Parliament is simply a debating chamber, a glorified talking-shop that can safely be relocated away from the nerve-centre of government.

What worries me most is that the Parliamentary Archives is still housed in antiquated accommodation in the Palace of Westminster. If the place goes up in flames -- which, from this article, sounds like a real possibility -- you wouldn't just lose the historic building, you'd lose the entire archive of Parliament going back centuries. The archival loss when Parliament burned down in 1834 was bad enough, but this could be even worse. There are currently plans to relocate the Parliamentary Archives to a new site, but these are on hold while MPs decide what to do with the rest of the building. According to the website, "a business case will be put forward to both Houses in autumn 2016, after a decision is taken on the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster". We're still waiting.
posted by verstegan at 8:47 AM on December 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


A friend of mine went to work there as Assistant Serjeant (sic) of Arms, which in practice was as head of HR for the non-political staff who work there. She's an experienced HR professional, it is in many ways a standard HR job. Except for those those regular days when she had to dress up in silk breeches and carry a sword.

verstegan - that's the point. All those civil servants and the rest of have to go with the politicians as you say, but that's a benefit. Shifting the whole lot somewhere else would take years if not decades, but would do a lot to rebalance the economy.

My vote would be somewhere in t'north but it has to be somewhere north of Birmingham. But if I had to bet I'd be surprised if they get any further away than Methodist Central Hall, and/or the QE conference centre. The justification will be, as verstegan implies, that they need to be near the civil service and the departments.
posted by YoungStencil at 9:18 AM on December 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


I will quit joking after this one, but a referendum to move Parliament to the Tower (temporarily, of course, for their own safety) would probably pass 90-10.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:21 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Given that of the three previous attempts to radically renovate parliament by outsiders (A Catholic, two Irishmen and a full Luftwaffe of Germans (please note I am not counting the 1974 attempt by the Irish again, as they do not seem to be aiming at radically restructuring the building)) have resulted in a day to celebrate and execution, a building that still had most of the problems as before, and a rebuilt building exactly as it was before, respectively, I don't think that anything, short of a fire that actually kills a good proportion of Parliament, will actually get this place fixed up. The best thing to do would be to stick them all out on an unused cricket pitch in East London under a tent for a few years, tear down everything but the tower housing Big Ben and build a modern building. Or at least completely gut and rebuild the inside, keeping the outside for historical value. I would place good money on getting more than 50% of the public to readily agree that the MPs should be meeting on bleachers on an unused bit of grass out in a run down part of London. I imagine you could probably get the people of most democracies to agree that their legislative bodies should meet in similar circumstances. Toughen them up a little. Provide adequate space for wheelchairs and for other people with mobility issues. There are large heaters that can easily keep a tent warm enough to work in.
posted by Hactar at 9:37 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


My sister worked for a government ministry that was still in the city where the previous capital was a full 10 years after the capital of that country moved 600km to the east, so it certainly is practicable to move a parliament (although of course the move from Bonn to Berlin is the opposite of a move from London to e.g. Harrogate) and not have the full civil service move immediately.

I've long thought the solution to the West Lothian question was to federalise the English government out of the UK parliament, maybe keeping Westminster for the English government and having a federal government somewhere nice and central. Maybe Derby, which is well connected (airport, railway, motorway), historic, has space for development and is in some beautiful countryside. That'll work, right?
posted by ambrosen at 9:48 AM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


If it does burn down they'll blame a Remainer and hang draw and quarter him. Tradition! Yay!
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:33 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Rather than bringing the country together, they seem intent on playing regions off against one another in wholly unnecessary competitions.

May the odds ever be in your favor!
posted by briank at 10:43 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


cstross, aren’t there issues with ley lines to consider, as well?
posted by mbrubeck at 10:46 AM on December 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Interestingly, the last time the Houses of Parliament burned down it was because they were attempting to rid themselves of outmoded accountancy practises:
Since medieval times the Exchequer had used tally sticks, pieces of carved, notched wood, normally willow, as part of their accounting procedures. The parliamentary historian Caroline Shenton has described the tally sticks as "roughly as long as the span of an index finger and thumb". These sticks were split in two so that the two sides to an agreement had a record of the situation ... In October 1834 Richard Weobley, the Clerk of Works, received instructions from Treasury officials to clear the old tally sticks while parliament was adjourned. He decided against giving the sticks away to parliamentary staff to use as firewood, and instead opted to burn them in the two heating furnaces of the House of Lords, directly below the peers chambers. The furnaces had been designed to burn coal—which gives off a high heat with little flame—and not wood, which burns with a high flame. The flues of the furnaces ran up the walls of the basement in which they were housed, under the floors of the Lords chamber, then up through the walls and out through the chimneys.
I live about a mile away from the place, and I'd be quite happy if the whole thing was moved somewhere else.

Oh, and I'd like to see the second chamber selected randomly from the electoral rolls, like jury service.
posted by Grangousier at 10:46 AM on December 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


I've long thought the solution to the West Lothian question was to federalise the English government out of the UK parliament, maybe keeping Westminster for the English government and having a federal government somewhere nice and central.

One problem with federalising the UK along existing lines is that England constitutes some 80% of it by population. So, either England is broken up into states/provinces/whatever one calls it, or it's a very lopsided federation (which means that either everybody is under English domination or the residents of Scotland and Wales have a disproportionate amount of sway that makes Wyoming's congressional/electoral clout look reasonable by comparison).
posted by acb at 10:54 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I clicked on the photos link expecting to see some really horrible stuff, but it didn't look all that bad to me. Not worse than a lot of buildings in Washington, DC, anyway. (Excepting the White House or the Capitol itself, though, because they each were heavily renovated in the 50s and 60s, respectively, at the sort of cost and expense only possible during the Cold War when nobody questioned such things. Presumably the Brits had other things to spend money on, like fixing the Luftwaffe's urban renewal efforts.)

The rats-nests of wiring looks like pretty much every old office building that I've been in—I have a little hobby of trying to identify the multiple generations of wires laid on top of each other. Sometimes you can see old prewar Bell System individual twisted-pair with screw terminal junctions and gum-rubber or fabric insulation, next to postwar 50-pair with big D-connectors and punchdown blocks, and then you get into weird old Telex and mainframe serial-terminal wiring, all abandoned-in-place, and somewhere nearby will be a brand new square of plywood and some Ethernet switches and a tiny piece of bright orange fiber. It's not like anyone is going to pay to tear the old wires out. What's impressive is if the oldest stuff is really in use. Lots of times organizations just jump to VOIP rather than bother to maintain it, which I sometimes wonder about from a security perspective.

Bit surprised at the fire danger, though. I'd have thought that the Parliment buildings would have been architected to be fire-resistant from the beginning, since so many of them were replacements built on top of the ruins of older, burned buildings. And old buildings in general tend to be pretty good in terms of fire resistance (lots of stone, wood when it's used tends to be huge timber beams that are naturally resistant to fire, not too much engineered trusswork, metal tends to be wildly overengineered, etc.), particularly once retrofit with sprinklers.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:01 AM on December 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


It all gets strange if you look at the UK in terms of population. There are more people in London than Scotland and Wales put together. Of course, moving Parliament etc would change that, and I'd welcome it, but you'd be talking about enormous population upheaval.
posted by Grangousier at 11:03 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


You can’t move it anywhere. People in Liverpool don’t like it being in London, but by God they wouldn’t let it go to Manchester. Yorkshire people wouldn’t tolerate either place. And so on.
posted by Segundus at 11:11 AM on December 1, 2017


I would ideally be in favour of building a giant new Administrative / Travel hub somewhere near birmingham (It's the Population centre point of the UK.

The CBC interview show, As it Happens, has long used Reading as the Centre of Brittan. They describe all locations in the UK as a distance from Reading, sometimes in miles or kilometers, sometimes in other units like garden gnomes lain end-to-end.
posted by bonehead at 11:13 AM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you don't like the government you have now, moving most of it (assuming the departments, etc. would have to go, too) to somewhere people wouldn't otherwise choose to live is not going to improve it.

We built a capital city in a swamp away from our major centers of population, industry, and trade. Permanent result: dreary town where politics becomes insulated from all else. The prospect of living in D.C. is enough to deter some people from government careers. (Again, before you say "Good!", try to remember that if you want government to work, you need people who (a) actually care and (b) are skilled enough that they could have better-paid careers in the private sector.)
posted by praemunire at 11:14 AM on December 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


The CBC interview show, As it Happens, has long used Reading as the Centre of Britain

When the new Crossrail railway line that runs under London is fully open, Reading will be the westernmost terminus of London's commuter-rail network, and thus, part of some sensible definitions of “greater London”.
Perhaps it can become a “second CBD”, like Sydney's Parramatta, or something like Paris' La Défence, though by then, it will be as inextricably a part of “London” as the once separate, rival city of Brooklyn is part of New York.
posted by acb at 11:27 AM on December 1, 2017


We built a capital city in a swamp away from our major centers of population, industry, and trade. Permanent result: dreary town where politics becomes insulated from all else. The prospect of living in D.C. is enough to deter some people from government careers.

The other option is to make the UK's economic centre somewhere else, in the same way that Frankfurt outstrips Berlin in Germany. The problem with that is that there does not seem to be a way of doing it other than by having one's capital annexed by an hostile power and locked up behind enemy lines for 40 years, or otherwise put out of action.
posted by acb at 11:30 AM on December 1, 2017


In a few years' time the UK's economic centre will be distributed between Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin, so that shouldn't be a problem.
posted by Grangousier at 11:38 AM on December 1, 2017 [11 favorites]


I'd have thought that the Parliment buildings would have been architected to be fire-resistant from the beginning, since so many of them were replacements built on top of the ruins of older, burned buildings.

I'd guess that that's where the asbestos problem comes from.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:50 AM on December 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Parliament should give up the funk and tear the roof off the sucker.
posted by plastic_animals at 1:09 PM on December 1, 2017


but it didn't look all that bad to me

I mean, some of the pictures were worse than others, but this one seemed a little worse than any building I've worked or lived in. (And if I'm reading things right, that's not water: "Something sticky dripped on to my hand. “This is grease and fat from the kitchens. It seems to be leaking on to electrical pipework,” Piper said.")
posted by advil at 1:28 PM on December 1, 2017


I don't think there is a particular quality concern with UK buildings compared to elsewhere.

You should visit Germany some time. Doors that close with a solid ‚click‘. Windows that open. Non-leaking plumbing. It‘s a dream.
posted by The Toad at 2:19 PM on December 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


You should visit Germany some time. Doors that close with a solid ‚click‘. Windows that open. Non-leaking plumbing. It‘s a dream.

The German-born, UK-based journalist Philip Oltermann (who was/is head of the Guardian's Berlin bureau) recounted in his book Keeping Up With The Germans how, after his family moved from Hamburg to London when he was 15, his father was charmed by the classically English sash windows their house had. Then it rained, and he had them replaced with modern German-made windows that seal properly.
posted by acb at 4:59 PM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Any comparison of Prime Minister's Questions to First Minister's Questions shows immediately why they need to move out, preferably yesterday, and frankly grow up and govern the country like actual adults. This is not a partisan statement - the quality of debate between the same parties on the same issues is just generally better in the devolved assemblies.

(There have got to be some good undergraduate essays to be set on the subject of the psychology of the architecture of Westminster and governmental attitudes to Brexit...)
posted by Vortisaur at 6:08 PM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


(There have got to be some good undergraduate essays to be set on the subject of the psychology of the architecture of Westminster and governmental attitudes to Brexit...)

I've seen a comparison of the layouts of parliamentary chambers in Europe, and Westminster is unique in its adversariality, with the two parties literally facing off like pieces on a chessboard. A lot of other European chambers are more semicircular in layout.

It is speculated that this accounts for some of the relative immaturity of Westminster politics. I'd be wary of attributing too much into it, though. Cultural transmission is a powerful force, and traditionally, the bulk of MPs were the product of university debating societies, where discussion is a winner-takes-all contest and being able to disingenuously argue a case one did not believe in was a sign of laudable cleverness.
posted by acb at 6:44 PM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Sure, they can legislate at their palace in London, but can they legislate on a cold rainy day in Stoke?

This is a fantastic comment, so I needed to quote it.

One thing to remember is that the civil service is already somewhat distributed around the country. I work for the Department for Education and we have offices in Darlington, Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Coventry and Nottingham as well as our main office in London. There's even a London hiring freeze of sorts at the moment, so all posts are advertised for non-London sites only.

Some departments are better at this than others though. For example, I know the department formerly known as BIS, now Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, BEIS, underwent a bit of London centralisation recently.

I don't have stats on 'core' department employees on hand, but according to the Office of National Statistics, 18.7% of civil servants were London-based in 2016 (figure 6). This is skewed by the inclusion of frontline staff delivering services (what we have left) around the country though versus those in policy and analysis type posts in main offices, so to be taken with heavy caveating.
posted by knapah at 11:13 PM on December 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


if the budget committee is deciding whether to cut money from the Ministry of Dogs or the Department for Cats and the Chief Civil Servant* of Cats is in the room purring winsomely while her counterpart in the Ministry of Dogs is on a shoddy Skype connection, the MoD is in trouble.

Oh, and boy did this stand out, we just moved to Skype from BT Conferencing and some VC service saving some ludicrous amount of money but reducing call and image quality substantially.

I work across sites daily and am getting a bit fed up with everyone sounding like staccato robots through water.
posted by knapah at 11:21 PM on December 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


the department formerly known as BIS

Oh, I wondered what happened to them...
posted by Grangousier at 3:19 AM on December 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't think there is a particular quality concern with UK buildings compared to elsewhere.

I am reminded of a place I stayed years ago. Lovely leaded-glass casement windows, no double glazing of course, and a tiny missing pane so that when it snowed overnight, there'd be a wee little heap of snow on the window sill when I woke up in the morning.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:03 AM on December 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


Right, but "high tannin" means it is bitter without overcooking the leaves. Compare this to the terrible tea (and brewing methods) that's endemic to much of the rest of Europe, and you'll see that British tea is very bitter by comparison - because a lot of the rest of it isn't bitter at all.

What high tannin teas produce most for me is an clean astringency in mouth feel (that the milk somewhat offsets). I supposed "bitter by comparison" might be correct, but it's by no means one of the primary notes in my cups (and I'm not fancy, I usually use Yorkshire Gold bags). Malty, astringent, and milky is what I usually taste.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:05 AM on December 2, 2017


You should visit Germany some time. Doors that close with a solid ‚click‘. Windows that open. Non-leaking plumbing. It‘s a dream.

Yeah, why not fly to the new Berlin Airport? Oh no, you can’t, can you?
posted by Segundus at 1:45 AM on December 4, 2017


I hardly think the delay of one major civil infrastructure project is an indictment of all German building standards.
posted by Happy Dave at 3:27 AM on December 4, 2017


Anyway, you can fly to the new Berlin Airport. You taxi straight past it on your way to the dump that is Schönefeld. That said, Schönefeld's only really bad if you're flying low cost shorthaul from outside Schengen. Which kind of serves the UK right, really.
posted by ambrosen at 5:49 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Better to delay than cut corners and open a badly put-together piece of junk which will forever not quite work right, which seems to be the default approach here. Take your time and get it right.
posted by Dysk at 5:54 AM on December 4, 2017


To be fair, large infrastructure projects in the UK's capital city are generally pretty good, and not subject to disastrous delays. Crossrail's going to be great, the more modern Heathrow terminals are great, Gatwick's great, every update to the Tube and Overground's great, the Cycle Superhighways are good, but extremely limited. The new sewers are good.

Outside the M25 (arguably, outside zone 3), though,…
posted by ambrosen at 6:11 AM on December 4, 2017


How's progress on that new Heathrow runway?
posted by Dysk at 6:18 AM on December 4, 2017


FWIW, this image of contemporary cabling in some beautiful woodwork is encouraging. Yeah, they could have dressed them better, but of all the beat-up stuff I've seen, this isn't an issue.
posted by mikelieman at 6:22 AM on December 4, 2017


Well, I can't think of anything that's got grotesquely delayed halfway through within London. But I can't see any electric wires at my local railway station, a year after they were promised and with 200% of the budget spent.
posted by ambrosen at 6:23 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Let's not even get started on government IT and admin infrastructure projects. National ID cards anyone? Any guesses for how much has been sunk into that project with nothing to show for it?
posted by Dysk at 7:10 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


FWIW, this image of contemporary cabling in some beautiful woodwork is encouraging.

Yeah I thought that was pretty neat. Someone bothered to do some actual woodworking to make that fit in. In most places you'd just get some big anodized aluminum extrusion mounted to the wall and that would be that.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:48 AM on December 4, 2017


Genuine question - where has this idea that buildings in the UK are poor quality come from?
[...]
I don't think there is a particular quality concern with UK buildings compared to elsewhere.


The new homes 'uninhabitable' after less than a year
posted by Dysk at 2:45 AM on December 21, 2017


« Older A weird bit of financial history   |   Still grumpy, but loves Instagram Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments