Introduction: what, why and how of reimagining

Taking reimagining to mean ‘the action or an act of imagining something again, a reconstruction; a remake’, this chapter identifies what is to be reimagined in this book, who is going to be doing the reimagining, and the approaches adopted in reimagining. This introduction makes clear that the specific focus of the book is the UK parliament; that those doing the reimagining bring together perspectives of both senior parliamentary officials, researchers and academics drawing upon wide disciplinary expertise; and that foundational principles drive the reimagining of the parliamentary activities under consideration in later chapters. This introductory chapter also provides an ideational frame – constructed around notions of space, connectivity and interaction – within which key parliamentary activities can be reimagined. This frame is used in this chapter to provide brief overviews of the contemporary significance, and condition, of parliament and to make the case that now would appear to be the time ‘to think seriously about starting over’ when imagining the UK parliament at the heart of a broader political system of parliamentary democracy.