There’s only one way to save the crumbling Houses of Parliament. Turn them into a theme park

The Houses of Parliament are falling down. According to the Independent Options Appraisal of the Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme – a group of engineers and project managers commissioned to have a butcher’s – the Palace of Westminster is ‘partly sinking, contains asbestos and has outdated cabling’, is ‘infested with rats and mice and in an advanced state of disrepair’ and will take £5.7 billion and 32 years to put right, unless MPs and Lords shuffle off somewhere else for a bit, in which case it’ll be £3.5 billion over six years. Without such repairs, ‘major, irreversible damage’ looms.

Several MPs have taken advantage of the report to suggest that leaving London would not only let us fix up the dilapidated diet, but also beef up political participation in the provinces; doe-eyed Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham last week suggested MPs could take a few years out in Manchester (which, by complete coincidence, he represents).