Finally, on October 28 [1943], there was the rebuilding of the House of Commons to consider. ...I sought to re-establish...the two great principles on which the British House of Commons stands in its physical aspect. ...which will command the approval and the support of reflective and experienced Members. The first is that its shape should be oblong and not semicircular. Here is a very potent factor in our political life. The semicircular assembly, which appeals to political theorists, enables every individual or every group to move round the centre...I am a convinced supporter of the party system in preference to the group system. I have seen many earnest and ardent Parliaments destroyed by the group system. :o The party system is much favoured by the oblong form of chamber....Logic, which has created in so many countries semicircular assemblies with buildings that give every member not only a seat to sit in, but a desk to write at, with a lid to bang, has proved fatal to Parliamentary government as we know it here in its home and in the land of its birth.
Thus Winston Churchill. The Second World War, Volume 5, Closing the Ring, (133-4).
