Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize – The Walking Wounded

This is the runner-up in our recent Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize. The rest of the shortlist will be published in the coming days.

At the entrance is a pale stone bower of equilateral arches and then a brass-plated door opens into a small vestibule and after a turn there is the Chamber. The golden Sovereign’s Throne: empty. Five rows of long benches, red leathered, are stacked on either side. Above, between sets of bar-traced windows, bronze statues of chain-mailed knights hold broadswords and maces. Some of their faces are cast downward as if watching the proceedings below.

From my seat in the guest area, near the entrance, I could see the Labour peers to the right of the throne and the backs of the Crossbench peers and then the rows of the Conservative opposition. A bewigged secretary bent over a desk in the centre of the room. He was browsing Wikipedia on a desktop computer.