Oh look, there’s water coming through the roof of the House of Commons! What a gift to those starved of metaphors for the mess that has been made of Brexit. The problem is that the water coming through the roof, which the House authorities are insisting is not a sewage leak (in a blow to fans of particularly crap metaphors), is far more than some kind of coincidental symbol of what’s going on. It’s actually just a different manifestation of the same problem afflicting British politics as the one that’s led us into the Brexit crisis.
The House of Commons Chamber is the bit of Parliament that the public notice the most, and it’s doing pretty well compared to the rest of the estate. The basement of the main Palace, for instance, has flooded a number of times, while a chunk of masonry fell off another building and onto an MP’s car in 2017.
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