My nastier, more vindictive side rather hopes that it will take so long to renovate the British Houses of Parliament, and the unmistakable clock tower of Big Ben, that MPs have to move out of the building for good, and are rehoused in a hideous modern shed in the suburbs. This may seem spiteful. It is spiteful. Even so, there is a good case for it.
It is a real issue. For many years the experts have known that the Palace of Westminster, which looks so good in the background of TV news reports, is close to falling down. It was not very well built in the first place. It was quite severely bombed by Herr Hitler in 1941, and rebuilt on the cheap in the lean years after the war. A very expensive attempt to restore it in the 1980s has not held off the ravages of the years. A subway line which runs beneath it is suspected of making things worse. And now they are having to silence the great bell of Big Ben to allow unavoidable repairs to be done. Experts would like to shut the whole building down for several years and send both Houses of Parliament somewhere else. The members themselves don’t want to go. Who knows where they might end up? Worse, seen against a more ordinary background, would they look as dull and undistinguished as they truly are?
Peter Hitchens, “An Empty Parliament”, First Things, 2017-10-03.
October 14, 2019
QotD: Parliament and the Palace of Westminster
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