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. The screen was placed to make it visible for and reproachful to the occupant of 10 Downing Street. I went up to the driver and asked him what he was doing there. He said he was being paid, but did not know who was ultimately paying him, or what the whole thing was for. I wonder why the rules forbid citizens from traversing an ordinary public path in order to let the media take over, yet allow the highway to be occupied by a large (and tasteless) political publicity stunt.
The answer, I think, is official deference to the mainstream media triumphalism which equates its own interests with those of the general population.
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