Guess where I've been this week
All around the Houses, and put 2pm on September 2 in your diary
With just over a week to go until my new BBC Radio 5 Live show launches, I was in Westminster this week for some planning/plotting and snuck into the Commons chamber early doors before the tours started. More on that next week.
But it reminded me that I promised in a previous email that I would rank my favourite parliament buildings. Because it is that sort of Substack.
Several people made recommendations – Tony Reid suggested the Canadian parliament in Ottowa, Matthew Green went for The Beehive in Wellington, Stephen Gardner chose the Swiss Parliament building in Berne (“very spectacular location and well worth a tour”), Margot Swift picked the parliament building in Havana (“El Capitolio very similar to the one in Washington, but a metre higher, longer and deeper apparently built in 1929”), and Caroline H went for the Althing in Iceland “the world’s first ever parliament”. But I haven’t been to any of them. So they don’t make the cut.
Coming up with the list, I realise that this has been mostly as a tourist, and often only from outside. Anyway…
8 European Parliament
Yes I know this is a photo of the European Commission. But it’s the only photo I can find of that bleak part of Brussels. I think this was taken late at night after David Cameron, or possibly Theresa May, announced a major deal had been struck, only for it to unravel days later. All the buildings roll into one in my mind now; windowless briefing rooms, corridors in concentric circles, translation headsets and bad tea. Not missed.
7 Holyrood, Edinburgh
It’s almost exactly 10 years since a YouGov poll put Yes two points ahead with less than a fortnight until the independence referendum, and I was thrown on the first plane to Edinburgh. It was an incredible story which took me all over Scotland, but I was based a lot of the time in the Holyrood parliament building, which looking back felt a bit like an AI rendering of the Houses of Parliament: oddly glossy and modern, but not all the bits line up. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not a huge fan of the “in the round” layouts of modern chambers. I have just remembered writing this story about how the Scottish Parliament had gone posh because it was serving deep fried Mars bars, wrapped in filo pastry.
6 Hellenic Parliament Building, Athens
This is what prompted the idea of a countdown after we went this summer. I described it as impressively bland. Three stories high, ochre-coloured, classic well, Neo-classical pile. But it ranks higher in the list because of the pom-pom-slippered soldiers outside.
5 Parlamentsgebäude, Vienna
This was a quick holiday stop, when we went inter-railing across Europe last summer. The weather was as hot as the building was closed. It had only a few months earlier been unveiled after a five-year restoration. In the bright sun the gleaming white marble looked like a magnificent wedding cake. Statues, columns, balustrades, porticos. Exactly what you want from a parliament building. Well, from the outside.
4 National Assembly of Hungary, Budapest
Democracy in Hungary might be on the backslide (Freedom House scores it just 3.57 out of 7), but the Gothic parliament building is magnificent. Dominating the east bank of the Danube, it opened in 1902, although they didn’t finish building it until two years later. My holiday snap doesn’t capture it, but there is a resplendent dome on top which now houses the Hungarian crown jewels, which have a long history of being lost, stolen, hidden and found. After WWII they were taken to America where they stayed through most of the Cold War, under lock and key at Fort Knox. US president Jimmy Carter returned them in 1978.
3 Capitol Building, Washington
I visited the US Capitol in 2017, back when the most dramatic thing to happen on the steps outside was the inauguration of presidents. That obviously changed in January 2021, but that’s not for now. Like everything in America, this is a parliament building turned up to 11. Everything feels massive. Too many steps, Too many statues. Too many paintings. Magnificent. When we were there they had only recently reopened the mind-blowing rotunda after a $60 million repair job. It is also home to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights, dating from the late 18th century. Which for America is ancient.
2 Reichstag, Berlin
Built in the late 19th century, it was ravaged by fire in 1933 four weeks after the swearing in as Chancellor of Hitler, who wasn’t big on the sittings of democratic institutions. In post-war Germany the Bundestag sat in Bonn, until it was relocated to Berlin in 1999, in the Reichstag building, redesigned and rebuilt by British architect Norman Foster. Just about only the four outside walls survived, with a modern parliament building inside this shell. And on top, a huge glass dome, with a chimney rising up from the ground floor to help provide ventilation. And right on top of that a terrific restaurant with views over Berlin, picking out the few old buildings surrounded by the brutalism which sprang up after the RAF’s help with redesigning the city. The food (and wine) up there was lovely, although I’m deducting points because of the number of wasps. Despite the yellow and black blighters, it is apparently the most visited parliament in the world.
1 Houses of Parliament, London
OK, I’m biased. But since the scaffolding came down, the outside of the Houses of Parliament now looks incredible. Walking across Westminster Bridge in the sunshine, the sand-coloured limestone positively glows. The clock face of Big Ben (yes, yes, I know, pedants) gleams, after they replaced every opal glass panel. It is a properly world famous icon, which cannot be said for most parliament buildings around the world. Which is why the state of the inside is so depressing. Toilet water dripping through ceilings, electrical fuses endlessly blowing, cold in the winter, hot in the summer. And mice. So many mice. When I was in this week, I was sitting on the (very quiet) terrace having a Pimms with a couple of colleagues, when we realised there were suddenly loads of mice scurrying around our feet. It was enough to turn us to drink.
The time, the place
So it’s official. I launch my new afternoon politics show, live from Westminster, on BBC Radio 5 Live, at 2pm on Monday September 2. You can listen on your radio, smart speaker or on BBC Sounds. No spin-off podcast yet, but you will be able to listen again on Sounds. That’s Monday to Friday, 2pm-4pm. Lots already planned, even more to to do next week. Wish me luck.
The paperback of my book, Planes, Trains and Toilet Doors: 50 Places That Changed British Politics is out on October 10. It includes a bonus chapter on a place which changed Keir Starmer. You can pre-order a copy now which will help with all those bestselling lists nearer the time. Thank you.
And here are a couple of diary dates where I’ll be talking about the book, and politics more generally.
I am going back to the hometown, for the Taunton Literary Festival on Saturday October 26. Tickets here
And I am at the Barnes Literary Festival on Tuesday November 12. Tickets here
It would be lovely to see you. For now, please do subscribe, comment, restack or just tell your friends.
Best wishes for the new radio show
Listening via Sounds to your first tx on 5Live, loving it