Hebden Bridge and Parliament: a strange suggestion

The Houses of Parliament are reported to be slowly turning into an uninhabitable ruin; an option under consideration is moving MPs and peers out for five years.

A news article about a possible move sees it as something positive:

“…with both MPs and peers in Parliament and the Queen in Buckingham Palace facing the possibility of decamping while renovations are made to their historic homes, is it now the time for power to shift in the UK?”

LSE Professor Tony Travers makes a bizarre suggestion:

“…perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to move power out of London. There are compelling arguments to decentralise the UK by moving Parliament...why don’t we move it to...” he trails off, reaching for Google Maps “... now, where’s sort of in-the-middle? Hebden Bridge! We could put it there.”

Hebden Bridge is just about in the middle of the British Isles, although it is not one of the official geographical centres and is considered to be far up north to people who live in the south of England. Even so, it is a very strange place to select almost at random from a map when there are other, better known places in the area, big cities such as Leeds or Manchester for example. 

Professor Travers may have been joking about moving Parliament to such a small market town, but Hebden Bridge has associations and connections that make a place of interest for several other reasons. 

There are some coincidences involving Parliament too.

Recent small synchronicities

I have a few more curious coincidences to report. 

Best one first:

I came across a hard-line sect called the Exclusive Brethren one day while doing some research for a client. I had heard of the very similar Plymouth Brethren but not these people. I spent some time reading up on them. 

I decided to take a break from work and have a look at a consumer forum that I am a member of. 

Someone had just started a new thread – about the Exclusive Brethren! 

I searched for other references to the EB on the site, but although the forum has more than 10 million signed-up members and huge numbers of posts and has been running since 2003 this was the very first time these Brethren had been mentioned. 

The synchronicity here is scary.

I arranged to meet someone at an outside event.

I had recently bought two boxes of very good quality flavoured teas, and as a present I took three bags of each for her to try. When we met, she pulled out a present for me: two boxes of the same brand of teas, although different flavours from the ones I had brought for her. This would not be worth mentioning, except that the - unusual - name of one of flavours was the same as that of a charity that I was researching for a client. 

As we were coming away, a young, Middle Eastern looking man coming into the park asked us where the main events were being held. His looks immediately reminded me of an unusual poet whose works this friend had recently introduced me to: Yahya Hassan, a controversial young Danish poet and politician of Palestinian descent. I had never heard of him before she told me that she was reading his poems. I had been thinking about him a lot, then someone who looked very like him, only even better looking, approached us!