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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BBC staff - just shut up about moving to Salford

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I really do find the BBC – and many of its folk – extremely trying. Yesterday we saw the producer of ‘Breakfast’ – that trailblazing, insightful masterpiece of television – whining that some of the team wouldn’t dirty themselves by moving to Salford. 

"People haven't yet said they're definitely coming and I don't think many of them will for a while.The presenters are in the same position as the rest of the team.

"It's not easy for people, they have to think really hard about whether they can move their families, whether they can commute." 

Forgive me for not weeping and wailing at the prospect of some very well paid people having to make a choice – loads of other people make that choice and move to the North. I do appreciate that people like Sian Williams and Bill Turnbull have never actually been to the North – except maybe to a nice hotel in the Lakes or North Yorkshire. And that such people believe Salford to be populated by a mix of toothless old gimmers with flat caps and very thin legs (or else by ravening, feral zombie youth starved of London flesh).

Apparently it will be worse still than that as Will Smith (who I believe is a popular American cinema actor and occasional excuse for a singer) won’t grace the sofa! It is clear that, without such folk, ‘Breakfast’ will fade into insignificance while people switch over to watch whatever dribbling pap the other sides are showing us. For Ms Ford, the Breakfast producer this is all dreadful:

“There are things we'll have to do differently because we are in Salford," she said. "There are certain people who at the moment are more accessible and they won't be in the future – politicians, celebrities, opinion formers.

"Will we get Will Smith on the sofa in Salford? It would be naive of me to say 'Oh yes, it'll be fine.'

"It won't be as easy as it is now."

There are, of course, no celebrities, politicians or “opinion formers” (this women really has swallowed the PR tosh handbook) outside London. The North is full of people with funny voices, strange eating habits and who probably smell odd too.

The decision to move chunks of the BBC to Salford was a daft, political decision that made little or no business sense. However, to hear BBC staff talk you’d think their lives were at an end at having to leave London.

PS And while we’re on the subject of BBC bollocks – go here to complete their “consultation” on equalities and diversity. And die a little.

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