Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Monday 21 August 2017

Big Ben takes a rest

 Today we were all invited to gather to hear the last chiming of Big Ben before the great refurbishment of Parliament gets under way over the next four years. (Except of course for the special occasions like New Year's Eve and Remembrance Day, when the chimes will sound at the due times, as tradition dictates).

To hear some, particularly MPs, you'd think this was the end of the world. Never mind that for all we know that may come sooner than we think, or at least the world's present mad careering to hell in a handcart may take some time to be stopped. Never mind that the government is faffing around like a bunch of headless chickens refusing to accept reality and get on with what it should have been getting on with a year ago. What matters to some MPs is that they turn out not to like what they didn't realise was involved in the repair and renovation programme they voted for.

Seems to me that if you employ professionals to do a job you let them get on with it, and get on with your own job as best you can - such as, for example, if you're an MP, trying properly to understand what you're voting on. And maybe paying a bit more attention to the general mess in the world, instead of crying horrors about a bell, like a bunch of sentimental snowflakes. It's not as though the country's short of bells: a point underlined when, as the applause for Big Ben died away, Westminster Abbey proceeded to ring the changes.