Silencing Big Ben is like stopping the heartbeat of our democracy – Telegraph.co.uk

Category: Democracy

Welcome to the sound of silence. As of noon next Monday, the lives of Londoners will no longer be punctuated by the bongs of Westminster. Those 10ominous strokes which herald ITNs News at Ten will seem incongruous not apt. For Big Ben (the clock and tower to which that great bells name has spread), is due for repair and the tolling will cease for the next four years. The builders are certainly taking their time about it.

Big Ben has been silenced before, of course: to protect Parliament from German Zeppelins (in case the bombers could hear the bells); for the funerals of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher; for briefperiods of maintenance work. But on this occasion its as if the city were having a heart transplant. While surgeons tinker away at the pulmonary arteries, we are left staring at a monitor that is flatlining.

Big Ben, as his name suggests, is less a giant grandfather clock...

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Silencing Big Ben is like stopping the heartbeat of our democracy - Telegraph.co.uk

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August 14th, 2017
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