@fkamiah17 my suggestion would be a hall of residence. A bedroom/office for each member and every so often a small kitchen dining room. They have the HOC restaurant for other meals. Other than that, they have their actual home which is presumably in or close to their constituency. If they choose to live a long way from that then that's their affair and the cost is down to them. No second home allowance or flipping or tax breaks.
@capnthommo Ha! I just said very similar in a different reply. Completely agree with the constituency home - if you choose to stand somewhere you don't/haven't lived, that's your look out. Sell the house where you do live and move. That'd put off a lot of opportunists as well.
Side note - MPs shouldn't have massive personal wealth. Anyone with more than, say £2mn (to be very generous) isn't allowed to stand, unless they take no salary.
@SurrealSeal@capnthommo What would they need expenses for, after all? Their term-time accommodation is provided, they earn plenty enough to buy their own food (although I would suggest something like we had, a Kitchen Fixed Charge, where you pay a certain amount every term and can eat what you want) and pay their own travel etc, exactly as you say.
@capnthommo@fkamiah17 Given that, I believe, many of them go in to politics for the "extras", second homes, paid for from the public purse, it's ridiculous, they're living in luxury and many people in the UK have to decide between heating and eating.
Yup, sounds like a good idea... even better curfew & controlled visiting (to vet lobbyists).... might quickly dissuade the grifters & opportunists - link that with a lottery for a two year term in the upper house, and we're looking at some great reforms....
(oh hold on, I've just come to... was I hallucinating there?)
@ChrisMayLA6 I like all of those. Add a canteen - no more restaurants and tea rooms, which can be turned into creches/nurseries. Strict alcohol limits and dining times - no six hour piss up lunches.
Lottery! Brilliant.
No alcohol - I wouldn't wish to be in a bus with a driver who'd had a few at lunchtime. Why should the reverse be true for those supposedly "steering" the country?
@Henrysbridge@ChrisMayLA6 No no no - they're pulling down the HoP, so they can build the barracks as part of a complex. They don't need all that space just for two sitting chambers and some offices. Either that, or they could each have an office with a separate sleeping area and shower room.
This aligns with a thought I had to make part of an Upper House like "jury service" - ie, draft people in as a "Civic Duty". Perhaps not for two years - I was thinking a few months at most so that (1) there is a good turnover so current opinions are represented (2) such members don't "go native" as it were and (3) any "nutjobs" who make it past any (essential) vetting can't do too much damage.
Yes, and all good... but the one fly in the ointment (as it were), is that in such citizen assemblies, the permanent bureaucracy gains power through continuity - now that's not fatal as there are all sorts of ways of dealing with that, but nonetheless its not an insgnifcnat problem - but overall I've always favoured a lottery-filled limited term citizens' second house
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