IT’S been the ding-dong over the big bongs.
Today at noon, hundreds of people, including the occasional MP and silly season journalist, found time to mark the last regular ringing, for a while at least, of the most famous clock tower in the world – Big Ben.
An eclipse of the sun it wasn’t but, amazingly perhaps, hundreds of people gathered in Parliament Square and scores of Commons staff congregated below the scaffold-shrouded Elizabeth Tower to pay their sad farewell to the world-famous chimes, which are due to fall silent for four years – the longest break in its 157-year history - to spare the ears of the workers carrying out the renovation job.
Of all people, Labour backbencher, Jess Phillips, was there, having been one of the more vociferous critics of the bongathon.
“Hope in our hearts that when the sodding bell returns we might of realised how ridiculous we look for giving a toss,” she tweeted earlier.
The Birmingham MP claimed she just happened to be at Westminster as the 14-tonne bell struck its last, having interrupted her holiday, to look after some urgent constituency work. “People have been talking about it as if it’s the end of the world. I can’t believe it,” she declared.
It had been suggested that a whole gaggle of MPs, disgruntled by the authorities’ decision to silence the Great Bell until 2021, would arrive before the Gothic structure and bow their heads in respectful sadness, led by London MP Stephen Pound.
But apart from the Labour backbencher, dubbed the “head headbonger,” there were only four MPs who appeared to have turned up, including the Tory Peter Bone whose fellow eurosceptics want Big Ben to bong when Britain finally leaves the European Union in 2019.
After Theresa May waded into the ding-dong over the length of time Big Ben would be silenced for, insisting four years “can’t be right,” the House of Commons Commission decided to reconvene to look again at the four-year break.
The renovation work includes stripping off the roof of the Elizabeth Tower and restoring it, repairing the bell frame, sealing leaks to the clock room and installing a lift. All for a cool £29 million.
Of course, to give strength to those who believe this whole summer saga is completely over-hyped bonkers is the fact that Big Ben won’t actually be silenced for four years; it will still be used for special occasions, including New Year's Eve and Remembrance Sunday.
As the famous chimes began to strike 12, silence fell among the gathered horde of bongers and then as the last one rang out a round of applause and cheers sprung up.
Mr Pound wiping his eye as Big Ben struck its last was asked if the tears were real. “Yes,” he declared and then added: “That was not synthetic sadness; that was real synthetic sadness.”
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