Parliament in a Field

Is this really a smart bit of news-reporting? Perhaps such plans should be kept secret?

Ananova: Alternative Parliament on stand-by---

MPs and peers will be evacuated from Parliament to sit at a 275-acre stately home in Hampshire in the event of a devastating terrorist attack, it has been reported.

Under a contingency plan codenamed "Operation Delta", all Parliamentarians, Commons officials, police, catering staff and the media would be transferred to the alternative site within three hours of the emergency.

A substitute debating chamber, voting lobbies and offices have already been set up at Bramshill House, a 17th-century building which has been used as a police training college since the 1960s. The site is just 50 miles from London. The plan would be put into operation if there was a catastrophic terrorist attack on the capital, or if Parliament itself was attacked.

Any such move would be the first time Parliament sat outside London since 1681 when Charles II moved it to Oxford following a dispute with the Commons over the exclusion of Roman Catholics.

Even during the Second World War, when the Commons chamber was destroyed by a Luftwaffe bomb in 1941, MPs continued to meet in the House of Lords until the chamber was reopened in 1950.

According to detailed floor plans seen by The Sunday Times, the "alternative" chamber would be able to house only 360 MPs - around half the members of the Commons - and would be shared with the Lords.

Accommodation would be provided in surrounding buildings and the plans show offices being set up in existing lecture rooms and a conference centre. They include rooms for the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and other senior figures, including the Speaker and the Serjeant at Arms, who runs the Palace of Westminster.

All the normal facilities, such as the MPs' tea room, vote office, cloakrooms, kitchens and television cameras have also been allocated sites. However, the plans state that there are no facilities for the public to sit and watch the parliamentary proceedings, and there is room for only 15 reporters.

Why would a public viewing facility be necessary? After a terrorist attack, would it really be wise for Brits to travel about or go for a peek?

More importantly, why release the exact location of the alternate parliament? Do they want the terrorists to hit that spot?

Also rather absurd is the fact that the "catering staff" have been included in the evacuation to the new spot plan. Catering staff? Shouldn't food be the last thing on the MP's minds?

And come now, a "tea room" and "cloakrooms"???

Surely, gentlemen, in a situation sufficiently terrible to require the use of an alternate parliament location does it really matter if your coats are hung neatly or thrown into piles?

I'll give you the tea room. I would need one too.