UK Pol
With so many MPs in one party, how do they sit in parliament? The commons isn't big enough for all the MPs to sit anyway, but certainly can't fit 400+ on one side...
UK Pol
@BashStKid if we're doing that, and I completely agree we should move them out of London. Then it should be somewhere a bit more north than Manchester. And MPs should be banned from expensing any travel other than by train.
That should fix the rail network somewhat...
UK Pol
@quixoticgeek As long as they end up in a port, their standard accommodation should be the repurposed Bibby Stockholm.
That should save on the expenses …
UK Pol
@BashStKid I know I said more north... but does scunthorp have a port?
UK Pol
Use the Teesport site
UK Pol
@quixoticgeek @DuncanMSussexPol They need to rebuild the Palace of Westminster anyway; they should just dust off the design for the debating chamber in Holyrood and use that instead (a modern horseshoe legislature design, preconfigured for coalitions rather than adversarial heckling).
UK Pol
@cstross @quixoticgeek @DuncanMSussexPol Move parliament out "temporarily" while "refurbishment" happens. Put the refurbishment contracts out to whatever incompetent hacks are available (does Crapita do renovations?). Let the temporary solution stand for a decade and the future parliament would never move back. There's nothing more permanent in politics than a temporary solution, after all.
UK Pol
@quixoticgeek they sit on the non-speaker end of the opposing benches too. There aren't 650 seats anyway. Even fewer of the Lords would fit in their chamber. It's a nonsense building, needs changes.
UK Pol
@mjr @quixoticgeek To be honest, it actually makes sense because the chamber of the house isn't really where any of the work is done anyway. It's little more than a stage set.
The real work is the committee rooms and offices, which are mostly across the road in portcullis house now.
UK Pol
@quixoticgeek judging by what I’ve seen from watching BBC Parliament on occasion, they never have *every* MP sat in the chamber. It’s just the ones involved in a debate that show up.
Apparently most hang out in the lobby, tea rooms, or parliament bar until the whips track them down to attend a debate or walk through the correct door to register a vote.
It’s the royal opening & closing ceremonies when you see them all show up, and there aren’t enough seats so a lot of them are stood up.
UK Pol
@quixoticgeek Let’s fit the Parliament to the people, close the lovely Westminster building for repairs, and move them out to a warehouse in Manchester.
Might be a sudden restart of HS2 …