The Spectator

Capital lettersSir: As Neil O’Brien (‘Planet London’, 14 April) rightly says, London is New York, Washington and LA rolled into one, which is unhealthy for our national politics. So I have a serious suggestion. If the House of Lords is going to be reformed in the next year, part of the reform should be to move it out of London to a city in the Midlands or the North, perhaps next to the relocated BBC in MediaCity in Salford Quays. Half our national politicians would then assemble well away from ‘Planet London.’ The public purse would make a net saving by selling the vast and expensive property portfolio the Lords has been acquiring to house its 850 members along Millbank and the surrounding streets.

  There was a time when the British could look upon the French, and their monstrously big government, with a sense of superiority: not any more. There is now a horrible similarity to our political predicaments. We both have political leaders who have failed to kick-start an economic recovery, in spite of repeated promises. We both have old-school socialists as opposition leaders, riding worryingly high in the polls while touting high-taxing policies that would not have sounded out of place in the 1970s. Meanwhile, national debt is rising on both sides of the Channel, albeit twice as fast in Britain as in France. But Britain does have the pound sterling. A country with its own currency can print money and keep debt artificially cheap.