Why the Houses of Parliament should be in Bradford...

When I worked for the Children's Society back in the 1980s, the charity relocated its headquarters. From Kennington to Clerkenwell -  a distance of about three miles. At the time, some of us wonder why the Society needed to be based in London. After all, much of the work wasn't in London but across England and Wales, perhaps the largest part of the fundraising took place outside the big city and London was then and is now a very expensive place.

We concluded - in that slightly jaundiced way of young people - that one of the reasons for staying in London was convenience. Not for the staff but for the Trustees and other important folk - all of them (with one exception in Wales) were living either in London or handy for the city. Had we relocated to Walsall or Harrogate, it would have been a terrible bind for those folk!

Back then I used to observe (and remember I'm a Londoner and was living in London) that since the government couldn't relocate the cultural and economic centre of the nation away from London, perhaps they should consider relocating the political centre. Not the bureaucrats - there has been a steady round of relocations for civil servants from basing the DHSS (as was) in Leeds and Newcastle to shoving the BBC off to Salford - but the politicians.

So my proposal is that, as a step to rebalancing the nation, the Houses of Parliament should be relocated to Bradford. Not only would this save loads of money but Bradford has better parks, better architecture and a better environment than the great wen. Those rich bankers and celebrated media persons can stay down in the busy, smelly city but take the politicians out of London and you'll maybe see a change in how they see their role and how they make the decisions that affect us all.

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