My run-in with Westminster’s TV news circus

Leaving an evening meeting in Westminster on Monday night, I walked to Charing Cross. Approaching the public path which runs across College Green by Parliament, I found, as so often nowadays, that it was fenced off to allow those pop-up studios which the big television channels erect to create their instant news circus. Fed up that the normal way was yet again blocked by what Psalm 84 calls ‘the tents of wickedness’, I lifted the barrier open and walked through. Two security guards leapt out of the nearest hut and tried to block me. I pressed on, however, and they could only scamper after me calling out ‘Health and safety! Health and safety!’ At the other end, the temporary barriers were locked, so I climbed over them (the barriers, not the security guards).

Moving on to Whitehall, I encountered, in the middle of the road, a vehicle and trailer. The latter carried a vast plasma screen showing a large picture of Jack Williment-Barr, the four-year-old boy who, in circumstances which remain obscure, had been photographed, in a picture published in the Daily Mirror, lying on the floor of a hospital in Leeds.