So the great day is approaching when once more Britain will be free – celebrate one and all unless of course you want a Brexit Bong. In the first Thick of It moment of the Johnson government we have seen the whole Whitehall machine trying to get the PM out of a mess of his own making. It all started with what was supposed to be an easy breakfast TV interview which would allow Boris to issue forth on all sorts of things and not expect to get grilled too much on any of his responses and so it turned out to be. Little did anyone know that the one question that would get Boris into hot water of sorts was the question of the bell known as Big Ben. In response to a question about getting Big Ben to bong at 11pm to mark the UK’s exit from the EU Boris came up with a comic line about having a wipe round to pay for it. Ho Ho everyone thought and quickly got on with the rest of their day.
Unfortunately for Boris the idea was jumped on by the Nutters (A Thick of It categorisation) and quickly £125k was raised and at which point No. 10 went into meltdown trying to kill the story – it failed to do so and only managed to add fuel to the synthetic rage. In the end Boris Johnson had to come clean and kill the whole idea off because it was, well, preposterous as there currently is no clapper in Big Ben nor a floor underneath it either as the whole bell tower is being renovated. The one saving grace was that the contenders for the Labour leadership weren’t drawn into the whole crazy nonsense although there is still time.
At times you just have to sit back and wonder at the preposterous lengths people will go to make themselves sound important and ridiculous at the same time.
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