Parliament is collapsing – the building looks dodgy, too
Everything’s falling apart. Brexit’s falling apart. The Government’s falling apart. The Tory party’s falling apart. And, to cap it all, Parliament’s falling apart, too.
To those of us who work there, it came as precisely zero surprise when the Commons was shut down on Thursday by water cascading through the ceiling. Nor were we surprised that, at exactly the same time, the ceiling of the press gallery café sprung a leak, too. Frankly, it’s surprising it doesn’t happen more often. The Palace of Westminster is a costly, outmoded, crumbling wreck that is no longer fit for purpose. I know, I know. We’re working inside not only Britain’s most dangerous building, but its most clunkingly obvious metaphor.
The year before last, a lump of masonry plummeted from a roof and smashed the windscreen of a parked car (thankfully, no one was inside it). The Palace’s basement often floods – which would be bad enough, if the Palace’s electrics didn’t run through it. Numerous journalists have found themselves trapped in the press gallery lift. And the less said about the plumbing in the lavatories, the better.
The building teems with mice. We’re repeatedly begged to throw out
our piles of old newspapers, because the mice use them for nesting. Any food not stored in a tupperware box is liable to be found the next morning covered in nibble-marks, or worse.
Parliament burned down in 1834, and no one should be shocked if it happens again. Fire safety officers patrol the corridors day and night, but they have their work cut out.
The floor of every room in the press corridor is a spaghetti junction of wires and cables, with extension leads plugged into extension leads. The week before last, in a fury about Brexit, Tory MP Steve Baker snarled that he “could tear this place down and bulldoze it into the river”. I’m sure he could, but it wouldn’t take a bulldozer. A gentle nudge with his elbow should do it.
At some point in the next decade, everyone’s going to move out, so that £3.5billion of rebuilding work can be completed.
In the meantime, we continue to scurry around a teetering neo-gothic death trap.
“We shape our buildings,” said Churchill, “and afterwards, our buildings shape us.” No wonder so many MPS look close to collapse.
Perhaps recklessly, I gave my son a little tour of Parliament once. He paid no attention to a word I said, and when I tried to introduce him to my Telegraph colleagues he immediately hid behind my legs and refused to come out. But neither of us was crushed by tumbling masonry or drowned in a torrent from a burst sewage pipe, so I think I can call the trip a success.
Up to now the boy has shown a healthy level of interest in politics, ie, none at all, so this week, on the walk to school, I was somewhat taken aback by his abrupt announcement that he’s going to be prime minister. Apparently, a teacher had explained to him what the role involved. “It’s the lady that’s the boss of England,” he informed me, “but a boy can do it too.” Now, he has resolved to be that boy.
Since a Conservative Party leadership contest is on the horizon, and competition is likely to be fierce, I asked him to set out his vision for Britain. Why did he want to be prime minister?
“So,” he said sternly, “I can put anyone I want in jail.”
A firm, no-nonsense, back-to-basics approach to crime. Should appeal strongly to the Tory grass roots. The boy clearly knows his audience.
“And if they’ve been very bad,” he went on, “I’m going to put them in jail… for 80 minutes.”
Crafty move. Lenient sentencing, to reach out to the party’s more liberal wing. An expert piece of political triangulation. Boris Johnson should be worried.
My son is five years old. This could be the injection of youth the Conservative Party is crying out for.
Scientists are reporting what cat owners have known since time immemorial. Cats do recognise their names when we call them. The reason they don’t come running, scientists have realised, is simple. They don’t want to.
And why should they? Cats aren’t our servants. They’re our masters. Of course they are. It’s the natural order of things. We wait on them hand and paw, we administer to their every whim, we let them sleep on our beds and our favourite armchairs, and in return, they give us… nothing. Nothing at all. Apart from the occasional privilege of stroking them. And the odd dead shrew on the doormat, as a kind of tip.
Still, it’s good to see scientists starting to cotton on at last. They’ve long puzzled over the meaning of a cat’s miaow. But cat owners – or rather, cat employees – understand it. It’s the feline equivalent of a fingerclick, and a shout of “Garçon!”
The plain fact of the matter is, cats are earth’s supreme species. Hence their regal hauteur, and air of patient disdain. You and I – mere human beings – should not expect a cat to come running when we call its name, any more than we would expect the Queen to come running if we called her name. “Lizzie! Lizzie! There’s a good girl! Come on, now! Your dinner’s on the kitchen floor!” To shout this at Her Majesty would be little short of treason, and punished accordingly. We are lucky that cats are so tolerant of our insolence. Perhaps they’ve decided to show us clemency, on the grounds that we are dumb animals, and don’t know any better.
Dogs, of course, are nothing like cats. Dogs come running. Dogs fetch sticks. Dogs warn of intruders. Dogs beg. This is because dogs are subservient. They are below us. They know their place.
And we, in turn, should know ours. A long and chastening distance below our feline overlords.