Make them move north

Move half the Parliament to the North of England. That’s the idea of Lord Adonis for the House of Lords. He reckons that their Lordships ought to be moved, lock stock and barrel  out of the Palace of Westminster to be placed in some northern city.

It’s his view that there is too much concentration of power in London. And who can disagree. The South East of England has grown at the expensive of other parts of England and for that matter the UK has a whole.

But what’s true about London can also be said about Cardiff. There is an over concentration on the capital city at the expense of other parts of Wales. 

The city is prosperous and cosmopolitan and has the feel of a wealthy European capital. Good on it I say. It provides work for not only its own population but for the valleys. But I’d venture to say that it has now had lift off and doesn’t need to have a national political institution to sustain it. 

Despite voting no to an Assembly in 1997 Cardiff has greatly enjoyed the fruits of having the Senedd down in the Bay. But does it need it now? Unlikely. 

Wales doesn’t have a second chamber it can lift and move to Machynlleth so the whole shooting match would have to be moved. And why not? Wales would greatly benefit if our politicians had to up camp and move from the fleshpots of Cardiff to some place in the middle of Wales. 

If it happened it would soon become apparent that the transport infrastructure would need to be improved. The need to get to mid-Wales would concentrate the minds of our politicians just how badly travel in Wales is. 

It wouldn’t be long before our political class were pushing for new railway and road links  to their new place of work. And of course, not forgetting the new super highway of the Internet. 

Can you imagine them putting up with the slow connections and lack of mobile phone coverage that exists in most of mid -Wales. No, they’d be screaming at the providers if they couldn’t tweet and blog and generally let the world know of their work.

Whilst on the business of communications, just like a large part of the BBC in England has been forced to Salford it would then make sense to move junks of BBC Cymru/Wales news service to follow the Assembly to its new home. 

And think of that growing lobby industry what a boost they’d provide to economy of the area. They could hardly do their work without the development of new  bars  and restaurants.

So lets start the campaign to move the Senedd north from the Bay of Cardiff.