{"id":1639,"date":"2009-11-13T11:30:52","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T10:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1639"},"modified":"2009-11-13T11:30:52","modified_gmt":"2009-11-13T10:30:52","slug":"something-you-didnt-know-about-the-house-of-commons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=1639","title":{"rendered":"Something you didn&#8217;t know about the House of Commons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As a result of my web site, I receive e-mails from all around the world and I&#8217;m always happy to hear from readers. Today I had this e-mail from a German student of 27 in response to my web essay on<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/Britishpoliticalsystem.html\"> &#8220;A Short Guide To The British Political System&#8221;<\/a>:<br \/>\n&#8220;I am studying English and Portuguese at the University of Heidelberg (translation and interpretation). Next week, I will have to talk about the UK Parliament in class. During my researches I came across your article which I consider quite helpful.<br \/>\nMy concern: Since I don&#8217;t want to bore my audience with plain facts only, I was thinking about including some anecdotes or simply some &#8220;everyday life stories&#8221;. Maybe something that is very strange, typical or special about  the Parliament and its members.<br \/>\nI&#8217;d be so glad hearing from you!&#8221;<br \/>\nSo &#8211; how did I respond? As follows &#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n&#8220;I think I know what you want, so let me offer a couple of suggestions.<br \/>\nIf one walks from the lobby of the House of Commons into the chamber of the Commons, one passes through an archway which looks odd because it is evidently damaged. In fact, most of the Palace of Westminster was destroyed by German bombing in the Second World War but, when Parliament was rebuilt after the war, Winston Churchill proposed that the original archway with its obvious damage be retained as a reminder of the war. Today it is called The Rubble Arch.<br \/>\nYou can see an image <a href=\"http:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/visiting\/onlinetours\/virtualtours\/commons-tour\/index.htm\">here<\/a> and, if you click on the &#8216;i&#8217; in the top right, you&#8217;ll see a picture of the arch after the bombing.<br \/>\nWhen one passes through the archway and enters the chamber, there is one surprising feature of the seating &#8211; there is simply not enough. The current membership of the House of Commons is 646 (it will rise to 650 at the next General Election), but there are only enough seats for 427 members.<br \/>\nThe reason that this arrangement works is that, unlike other Parliaments, there are not assigned seats for each member; instead members take any seat they want on a &#8216;first come, first served&#8217; basis, although there are various traditions (notably blocks of seats for particular political parties, most especially those in Government and those in Opposition).<br \/>\nThe reason that the arrangement was chosen is so that the chamber does not look too empty when (most of the time) very few members are present for the debates. Conversely, when there is a major Commons occasion (such as a Budget statement), so many members try to enter the chamber that all the seats are taken and members have to sit on the stairways or stand at the entrance. This all adds to the sense of excitement.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a result of my web site, I receive e-mails from all around the world and I&#8217;m always happy to hear from readers. Today I had this e-mail from a German student of 27 in response to my web essay on &#8220;A Short Guide To The British Political System&#8221;: &#8220;I am studying English and Portuguese [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}