40 billion for restoration of Houses of Parliament
It rather makes Crossrail's 19bn price tag look like a bargain.
Turn the place in to a museum.
Purchase land adjacent to the new Sports Quarter facility in Birmingham that would effectively link up to the NEC and Airport and build a State of the Art secure modern facility with Media Centres for a fraction of the cost, outside of London in the centre of the Country
Lots of land there. Brownfield sites.
Turning it into a museum would also cost a fortune.
Selling off the land for flats, by contrast, would be a net positive for the taxpayer, and would lower the cost of all housing.
I'd much rather have a piece of glorious architecture used for it's intended purpose than a train line to cut 20 minutes off a load of people's commute.
I take the opposite view.
As is your right of course. All I'd say is that you can always build infrastructure at some point but you can never replace heritage once it's lost.
I take your point, but it feels like we've been trying to build infrastructure for most of my lifetime without success. Galling to see some building in London come in and effortlessly get funding on that scale.
I would like to propose an alternative to renovating the Houses of Parliament.
Knock it down. Sell the land off for apartments.
Use some existing facilities to house MPs and Lords. There's the QE2 Conference Center around the corner. That would work.
There's barely more than a thousand of the buggers in total. So some hotel ballrooms are going to be big enough.
A few years of slumming it, and they might be able to come up with a proposal that costs -say- 1bn, rather than 40bn.
And then we might be able to actually finish some proper infrastructure projects.
Sell it to the Chinese for use as their embassy. Move to the geographical centre of the UK, Haltwhistle. I bet they would suddenly find reasons to improve infrastructure in the North.
"When asked if Starmer should resign, MP for Brent West Barry Gardiner said he thinks Starmer "needs to think very hard about what is in the country's best interest".
Rachael Maskell, who represents York Central, said she thinks it's "inevitable that the prime minister is going to have to step down".
Meanwhile, Rebecca Long-Bailey, who challenged Starmer in the 2020 Labour leadership race, described how appointing Mandelson was a “catastrophic misjudgement” and that Starmer had “huge questions” to answer."
The problem with asking “the usual suspects” - and those names certainly are - is it doesn’t tell us anything new.
Those people would have told you they are willing to vote against Starmer in a confidence vote on every Thursday of the Parliament, not just this one. Just two weeks into his Premiership, about 25 or so of Starmer’s MPs - Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet - would have voted against him in a confidence vote to oust him.
Correct. I listened to BBC News and it was simply a rollcall of 'Starmer outs' which would have been exactly the same people if it was taken anytime during the last 18 months. A chronic lack of imagination on the part of their researchers.
I thought Starmers apology was fulsome and there's no reason for him to go. He's a hell of a lot more honourable than several calling for him to go. Particularly those who owe him their seats which is most of them.
Labour were dead in the water before he came along
No. Starmer is badly damaged by this, in eyes of everyone, MPs and voters. There’s a bit now that can’t ever recover for him. He employed Mandelson AFTER Epsteins conviction. How does Starmer start up “for me it’s all about the victims” without that sounding very hollow now? How can he turn that bit around?
It’s similar to the FPN Boris and Sunak got for Covid Partying, that haunted Sunak all along the campaign trail. You can say “how does one midling FPN haunt you to that degree?” It’s how it handcuffed Sunak to the great cesspit of Covid Parties and everything horrible about the Covid years. And in politics it doesn’t have to be fair, I am not convinced Sunak was a partier, but stitched up with the FPN by his rival Boris. Same with Starmer, who might genuine feel for the Epstein Scandal victims, but from that one decision to appoint Mandy knowing he went back to Epstein after prosecution, Starmer is now handcuffed to the whole Epstein scandal. Mandy received 75K he can’t remember anything about, and likely long before Epstein found guilty of anything - but it’s Starmer please explain. That’s how it works. How does he escape from those handcuffs?
You are right though - until it’s present loyalists journalists getting these quotes from, rather than such obvious suspects, nothing at all is going to happen soon, the MPs are going to wait and see over the coming months. And I can’t see how this news story lasts much longer without new newsworthy things dripping out to sustain it.
I would like to propose an alternative to renovating the Houses of Parliament.
Knock it down. Sell the land off for apartments.
Use some existing facilities to house MPs and Lords. There's the QE2 Conference Center around the corner. That would work.
There's barely more than a thousand of the buggers in total. So some hotel ballrooms are going to be big enough.
A few years of slumming it, and they might be able to come up with a proposal that costs -say- 1bn, rather than 40bn.
And then we might be able to actually finish some proper infrastructure projects.
Its a historic building and we should try to preserve/conserve it. It doesn't need to be the parliament for the UK, which could be in a purpose built new building with associated offices and flats/hotel style rooms for those MP's who cannot get home each night.
A purpose-built new building in - e.g. Birmingham ... Swindon ...
I would like to propose an alternative to renovating the Houses of Parliament.
Knock it down. Sell the land off for apartments.
Use some existing facilities to house MPs and Lords. There's the QE2 Conference Center around the corner. That would work.
There's barely more than a thousand of the buggers in total. So some hotel ballrooms are going to be big enough.
A few years of slumming it, and they might be able to come up with a proposal that costs -say- 1bn, rather than 40bn.
And then we might be able to actually finish some proper infrastructure projects.
Its a historic building and we should try to preserve/conserve it. It doesn't need to be the parliament for the UK, which could be in a purpose built new building with associated offices and flats/hotel style rooms for those MP's who cannot get home each night.
A purpose-built new building in - e.g. Birmingham ... Swindon ...
Buckingham Palace could be converted and extended. The Royals don't really need it.
Comments
It’s similar to the FPN Boris and Sunak got for Covid Partying, that haunted Sunak all along the campaign trail. You can say “how does one midling FPN haunt you to that degree?” It’s how it handcuffed Sunak to the great cesspit of Covid Parties and everything horrible about the Covid years. And in politics it doesn’t have to be fair, I am not convinced Sunak was a partier, but stitched up with the FPN by his rival Boris. Same with Starmer, who might genuine feel for the Epstein Scandal victims, but from that one decision to appoint Mandy knowing he went back to Epstein after prosecution, Starmer is now handcuffed to the whole Epstein scandal.
Mandy received 75K he can’t remember anything about, and likely long before Epstein found guilty of anything - but it’s Starmer please explain. That’s how it works.
How does he escape from those handcuffs?
You are right though - until it’s present loyalists journalists getting these quotes from, rather than such obvious suspects, nothing at all is going to happen soon, the MPs are going to wait and see over the coming months.
And I can’t see how this news story lasts much longer without new newsworthy things dripping out to sustain it.