3 Billion to revamp Parliament

[Artaxerxes]

According to BBC

Pretty sure I know some folks willing to burn the fucker down for nowt.

Modernisation report available here.

 

[goldenecitrone]

You could get 1,500 garages in London for that much. As an alternative plan.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

They need to take a leaf out of Castro's book, go around the country wearing combat fatigues & sleep in tents. Thats how you do austerity government.

 

[Sprocket.]

Turn it into sheltered accomadation and move parliament to a set of multi floor porta cabins near Birmingham.

 

[binka]

when my old school was falling to pieces apparently the only option was a public private 'partnership' which resulted in a school less than half the size and with a quarter of the playing fields (rest of the space used for house of course)

 

[tbtommyb]

Tories always talk about the need to move waste-of-space civil servants out of central London. The best way to make that happen would be to move parliament out.

Then it could be made into a hotel for rich tourists.

If they applied their own logic to themselves...

 

[binka]

Then it could be made into a hotel for rich tourists.

you mean flats for foreign billionaires surely?

 

[gosub]

According to BBC

Pretty sure I know some folks willing to burn the fucker down for nowt.

Modernisation report available here.

Better off waiting til after they get rid of the asbestos

 

[BandWagon]

If the place really has to be done up, then they should take the opportunity to turn the Commons into a proper debating chamber instead of the schoolboy, confrontational arrangement we have at the moment. Semi-circular, proper seats, electronic voting instead of all the trooping in and out, etc.

 

[DotCommunist]

'we' can't afford the nhs but there's 3bn in the pot to pimp their palace?

 

[Pickman's model]

we should immure all the politicians (i mean all the politicians, councillors - mps - meps - mlas etc etc ad nauseam) in the palace of westminster, and shoot everyone who tries to escape or to provide the inmates with food, drink etc.

 

[SpookyFrank]

we should immure all the politicians (i mean all the politicians, councillors - mps - meps - mlas etc etc ad nauseam) in the palace of westminster, and shoot everyone who tries to escape or to provide the inmates with food, drink etc.

What about the catering staff, cleaners and what have you?

 

[J Ed]

What about the catering staff, cleaners and what have you?

They can be the prison guards, I bet they all fucking hate the MPs, can you imagine having to take orders from the entitled privately educated sociopathic scum on a daily basis? Let them have control over their own fates and the fate of the MPs..

 

[Sasaferrato]

'we' can't afford the nhs but there's 3bn in the pot to pimp their palace?

'We' can't afford the NHS, yet can afford a foreign aid budget of more than £12Bn a year. Our citizens, who are in work, are in need of food banks, yet we have £12Bn to give away?

 

[Citizen66]

This certainly takes expenses to a new level.

Surely it's much cheaper to decentralise it all and move the London Dungeon exhibition over to Westminster and house live exhibits in the cold and damp.

 

[pogofish]

If they are plannng a body similar to the Olympic Delivery to oversee the project, 3-bill is probably going to be a gross underestimate - all the usual suspects will inevitably be lining-up to feed on this bloated carcass of a project and fuck it-up to their advantage.

And where will they rent for tempo-parliament for the duration. That alone will not come cheap.

 

[kenny g]

Cut the number of MP's to 300 and people wouldn't notice the difference. I fail to see why they couldn't be housed in one of the many old disused town halls scattered around London.

 

[Pickman's model]

Cut the number of MP's to 300 and people wouldn't notice the difference. I fail to see why they couldn't be housed in one of the many old disused town halls scattered around London.

or cemeteries.

 

[Pickman's model]

What about the catering staff, cleaners and what have you?

they could find useful employment elsewhere

 

[ViolentPanda]

'We' can't afford the NHS, yet can afford a foreign aid budget of more than £12Bn a year. Our citizens, who are in work, are in need of food banks, yet we have £12Bn to give away?

"Aid" isn't aid. It's an investment that realises a fairly decent return, because the states that receive the aid invariably purchase further goods and services from the donor nation. What this means (although some members of the political class appear to be too dim to realise) is that if you kick the aid budget in the arse, you actually rob the economy, with regard to jobs and production, of more than the aid budget has cost.

 

[Sasaferrato]

"Aid" isn't aid. It's an investment that realises a fairly decent return, because the states that receive the aid invariably purchase further goods and services from the donor nation. What this means (although some members of the political class appear to be too dim to realise) is that if you kick the aid budget in the arse, you actually rob the economy, with regard to jobs and production, of more than the aid budget has cost.

We give aid to both India and Pakistan. Both of whom have standing armies the size of NATO, and are nuclear tipped. In need of aid, or in need of a better distribution of their resources?

 

[friendofdorothy]

austerity? what austerity...

 

[boohoo]

Move the MPs out to a new parliament located in Birmingham, do up the old Parliament and open it up to tourists. Rather see 3bn spent on something easily accessible to everyone.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Move the MPs out to a new parliament located in Birmingham, do up the old Parliament and open it up to tourists. Rather see 3bn spent on something easily accessible to everyone.

Not Birmingham - it should be as close to the geographic centre of the country as possible. A run down industrial estate in a shitty Northern town would be ideal. It would be hugely cheaper to rebuild, and house them there. And shift Whitehall with them too - employing so many civil servants in the most expensive (salary and property costs) part of the country is totally insane.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

We give aid to both India and Pakistan. Both of whom have standing armies the size of NATO, and are nuclear tipped. In need of aid, or in need of a better distribution of their resources?

Well, I don't necessarily agree with your general politics Sas, but I've always had this view. Any nation which can afford nuclear weapons yet has masses of people in dire poverty is seriously fucked up, and needs to look at itself very critically. But still, we do gain soft power from the aid, and hopefully help those people their own governments don't give a fuck about, so there are two sides to the coin, and I recall we are reducing aid to India over the next few years to nil (if memory serves).

 

[Flavour]

Any nation which can afford nuclear weapons yet has masses of people in dire poverty is seriously fucked up, and needs to look at itself very critically.

that would be... at last count, every nation which possesses nuclear weapons.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Well, I don't necessarily agree with your general politics Sas, but I've always had this view. Any nation which can afford nuclear weapons yet has masses of people in dire poverty is seriously fucked up, and needs to look at itself very critically. But still, we do gain soft power from the aid, and hopefully help those people their own governments don't give a fuck about, so there are two sides to the coin, and I recall we are reducing aid to India over the next few years to nil (if memory serves).

I'm not saying we should stop foreign aid, but, £2Bn or so could be well spent at home. Put into care services, it would make a huge difference.

 

[toggle]

'We' can't afford the NHS, yet can afford a foreign aid budget of more than £12Bn a year. Our citizens, who are in work, are in need of food banks, yet we have £12Bn to give away?

i'm a crap load more pissed off about Mps getting nicer offices than i am about foreign aid in principle. although I do question some of the details of that program.

 

[likesfish]

It is a recognisable image of the uk and its old really old and knackered.
Replacement isnt on the cards could you imagine the outcry.
But ouch thats a hidious price tag

 

[Blagsta]

Move the MPs out to a new parliament located in Birmingham, do up the old Parliament and open it up to tourists. Rather see 3bn spent on something easily accessible to everyone.

We don't want 'em!