Local British politics is a mix of the good, the bad and the mad

“Buildings of England”, the Bible of architectural historians, is effusive about the Grand Hotel in Scarborough, a chilly, rather tired seaside resort on the coast of Yorkshire. It is “a High Victorian gesture of assertion and confidence: of denial of frivolity and insistence on substance, than which none more telling can be found in the land”.Other reviews vary. “ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS,” reads one. “If I could give it 0 i would!!!” says another. A third vividly recalls: “The first room I got had pubic hair all over the sheets.” When Bagehot visited, he avoided that fate. But he found that the “glorious hall” highlighted in “Buildings of England” now hosts an air-hockey table and a luminous arcade machine, where punters can win prizes like an Xbox controller or a bottle of Prime, a sickly energy drink. In the bar four bored pensioners watched “The Chase”, a quiz show, at a disconcertingly loud volume.