Rosa Prince:
From Donald Trump’s latest antics to Cabinet in-fighting, there were plenty of pressing issues piled up in Theresa May’s in-tray on her return from holiday. Yet what moved the Prime Minister to issue her first public statement in weeks was the imposition of some rather over-the-top restrictions on a building site in central London.
“It can’t be right for Big Ben to be silent for four years,” she mused, wringing her hands in impotent regret at the decision by the House of Commons authorities to put the bell out of action from Monday.
Perhaps Mrs May thought this would show the strength of her leadership, her willingness to put national identity ahead of others’ petty public spending concerns or neurotic health and safety rules. After all this is a symbol of enormous national importance – a skyscraper of the Victorian era displaying the strength of Britain’s glory on all four sides. The silencing of the bells is equivalent to the ravens fleeing the Tower of London, or Nelson falling from his column. The intervention could even have shown her to be in possession of amazing foresight: we now know that there are ways of keeping the bell ringing while the tower is restored.
Unfortunately for Mrs May, this looks worryingly off the mark: her comments changed nothing. In fact, this saga has the potential to become an unhappy metaphor for her leadership.
Admittedly the decision is not hers to take. A House of Commons Commission, made up of officials and MPS, is reviewing the plans. But another prime minister – a Blair or a Thatcher – with more authority over her MPS and opposition, would have strong-armed the lot of them, calling them back from holiday if necessary, before the countdown to Monday’s switch-off ends.
Even worse, we now know that the Ayrton Light, which sits on the spire of the Elizabeth Tower and is lit after nightfall to signal that Parliament is sitting, is also due to go out during the restoration. It’s obviously a stretch to say that the lights are going out on democracy, too, but given grumblings over the use of so-called Henry VIII powers to push through changes to legislation during Brexit, this is surely a symbol Mrs May doesn’t need.
Perhaps it is most apt to look beyond politics. The metaphysical poet John Donne used bells to meditate on community. “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,” he wrote, a funeral lamentation implying that we are all in this together. Does Mrs May feel she’s in it together with her party?
Clocks, too, provide a visual image of our shared experience on this earth. It’s why members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists use a timepiece – the Doomsday Clock – to depict the likelihood of global annihilation. It’s not as bad as that yet for Mrs May. But she shouldn’t have been wringing her hands over the decision to gag Big Ben – she should have ordered those bongs to keep ringing until the end of time.