There is a delicious, almost poetic irony in the news that the Palace of Westminster is literally falling apart. The very seat of British power—a sprawling, neo-Gothic monstrosity designed to project an image of unshakeable permanence—is currently being held together by little more than asbestos, hope, and the collective delusion of its inhabitants. Naturally, the brilliant minds within its crumbling walls have reached a consensus: they will decide what to do about it in 2026. Not fix it, mind you. Just decide on the *plan* to fix it. This is the quintessence of the modern political animal: a creature so paralyzed by its own vanity that it would rather burn to death in a Victorian furnace than move to a conference center in Richmond for five years.

For those who haven’t been paying attention to the fetid rot of the British state, the Palace of Westminster is a fire trap of historic proportions. It is a labyrinth of ancient wiring, leaking sewage pipes, and enough asbestos to make a 1950s shipyard look like a health spa. There are literal ‘fire watchers’ who patrol the building 24/7, presumably because the sophisticated technology of the 19th century—like buckets of water and shouting—is all the MPs can be trusted with. And yet, the debate over whether to ‘decant’ (a lovely, wine-adjacent term for 'getting the hell out before the roof falls in') or stay in place while workmen drill around their precious heads has dragged on for decades.

The estimated cost of this exercise in procrastination ranges from several billion pounds to 'literally all of the money.' It is a staggering sum that could, in a more rational universe, be used to fix the crumbling infrastructure of the actual country, but instead, it will be funneled into preserving a theme park for narcissists. The Left will posture about the cost while secretly terrified of losing the televised prestige of the Dispatch Box, and the Right will bloviate about 'national heritage' while their own constituencies sink into the North Sea. They are all, without exception, terrified of the 'temporary' move becoming permanent. They fear that if they are stripped of their wood-paneled surroundings and their Pugin-designed wallpaper, the public might finally realize they are just a collection of middle-management careerists with no actual ideas.

The House of Lords, that gilded retirement home for the unelected and the over-privileged, is particularly resistant. Imagine asking a 90-year-old hereditary peer to leave his red leather bench; it’s like trying to remove a barnacle from a sinking ship. They argue that the 'sanctity' of the building is paramount, as if the physical stone and mortar somehow imbue their dithering with wisdom. It doesn’t. It just makes their incompetence more expensive. The physical decay of the building is the perfect, heavy-handed metaphor for the moral and intellectual decay of the people inside it. The pipes are bursting because the system can no longer handle the sheer volume of waste being pumped through it—both literal and legislative.

By setting 2026 as the year for a 'final' decision, they have masterfully ensured that the current crop of grifters can pass the buck to the next. It is a legacy of cowardice. The 'phased approach'—where they stay in the building while it is renovated—is the most absurd option of all. It will take thirty years and cost twice as much, all so an MP for somewhere-on-the-Wold can keep his subsidized gin and tonic in the Members’ Bar. They talk about the 'risk to the taxpayer,' yet they are the ones holding the matches. The sheer arrogance required to demand billions of pounds to repair a clubhouse while the rest of the nation faces a housing crisis and a collapsing health service is, frankly, the only thing about them I admire. It takes a truly sociopathic level of detachment from reality to prioritize a leaky roof in SW1 over the survival of the citizenry.

In the end, perhaps the best solution is the one they are currently pursuing through sheer inertia: do nothing. Let the fire watchers take a nap. Let the sewage pipes finally give up the ghost. Let the whole Victorian farce collapse into the Thames in a cloud of toxic dust. At least then we would have a monument that honestly reflects the state of British governance—a heap of expensive rubble, presided over by people who were too busy arguing about seating arrangements to notice the walls were on fire. 2026 isn't a deadline; it's a punchline to a joke that hasn't been funny for a century.