THE IDEA that the Houses of Parliament might have to be "abandoned" in the next 20 years has caused fits of the vapours among those and such as those.

My allusion to the archaic medical condition is uncharacteristically apt, as the joint is getting on and, in terms of practicality, has become a pain in the buttress. It suffers from flooding, asbestos and fire safety shortcomings. Furthermore, reports the BBC, the heating, water, drainage and electrical systems are "extremely antiquated".

Commons Speaker John Bercow says repairs could cost £3 billion. You could get seven Scottish Parliaments for that.

Mr Bercow said Westminster must not have "the ethos of a museum". More controversially, he added that, if it had to decant, it might go for "a regional option".

Cue more fainting fits all round. And, since Scotia Minor voted for regional status last September, surely that option could include us? We could have two parliaments. That would lead to jigs of joy in the Shires.

I said "decant" but Michael White, writing in The Guardian ("Whisper it, but maybe the Palace of Westminster has had its day"), reminds us that, in 2012, a Westminster study group included moving to another site altogether among the options.

But, let's face it, that ain't going to happen in our lifetimes. The lieges of Englandshire love the House of Parliament, as do the Yanks, as do I. Like a scene from The Matrix, a volley of rotten fruit stops in mid-air, as I dodge out the way and explain: architecturally, I love it architecturally! And maybe a little democratically (stray tomato hits me in the face).

Well what's not to like? As with much of London (pillar boxes, buses, Changing of the Guard, and other red things generally), it's like a film set. It's ecclesiastical on the eye. It's ornamental. It has Turrets Syndrome. And, like the average suburban home, it revels in ornate fireplaces and Arthurian Frescoes.

Sometimes described as "stanzas in stone", it stanzas to reason that the Great British Public has taken Westminster to its backward-facing bosom, even while loathing proceedings within.

I see the latter point. We don't elect representatives to sit among architecture or participate in pantomime. The House of Commons is unrivalled as political entertainment, which is not the same as democracy. Which brings me to the Lords.

The House of Lords could save you a fortune on LSD. Turn on to its golden gaudiness. Float downstream on its snoring waters. The problem: opulence corrupts and absolute opulence corrupts quite a lot as well.

Where Holyrood is a community centre, Westminster is a palace. Perhaps not entirely a palace of delights, but there's enough to turn heads and expand tummies, famously those of Scottish Labour MPs.

You know me as a stern moralist, incorruptible (or at least untested), but even I felt myself succumbing once. After being wined and dined in a subsidised restaurant, I waddled about willy-nilly and, in the black-and-white corridor, met an MSP-turned-MP.

"Hoy," he said, "Didn't you used to call me pie-face in your articles?"

"No, dear me, no. It was pudding-face."

"I see. Well, lovely to meet you, old fellow."

"Yes, you too. I'm so happy."

On another occasion, the man who now edits The Spectator took me onto the roof. Not to shove me off but just because there was a wee door that led you there. And I was never happier than writing a sketch in the Commonwealth Room, under the shadow of Big Ben.

But therein lies the problem. I was in the Commonwealth Room because the press rooms, to use the brutal expression, aren't "fit for purpose". Little about Westminster is. It was designed for a bygone age. Charles Barry intended it as a "sculptured memorial of our national history". Thus, from birth, it looked backward.

It started as Gothic Revival, became Dawn of the Deadwood, and now hosts weird democratic adventures in the Twilight Zone.

All that said, I don't favour a move to something like Holyrood, Brussels or Scandinavian tings. [CORR] All tings considered, old is apt for England.

Perhaps for Scotland too. Hence the renewed hankering for Edinburgh's neo-classical Royal High School building as the place that should have been the parliament. Now it's to be a hotel called, in a nod to Scotland's unhappy constitutional arrangements, Fawlty Powers.

Meanwhile, on the question of Westminster decanting to Scotland, all those in favour say: och aye!