Big Ben Might Go Quiet for Four Years, and Brits Are Furious
It’s a familiar sound for Londoners and tourists—the noise made when Big Ben, the great bell inside the clock tower of London’s Houses of Parliament, rings out to mark the hours (“Big Ben” is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to the whole clock, but that’s a misnomer; the structure that houses the bell and the clock is called the Elizabeth Tower).
The sound is also played on daily news bulletins from BBC radio. But now, due to refurbishment work, Big Ben might be silenced for four years. The debate over the plans has become so fierce that even Prime Minister Theresa May has weighed in. “It can’t be right for Big Ben to be silent for four years,” she said Wednesday at an event in Portsmouth, southern England.
The proposal to silence the bell and its fellow, smaller bells came about due to upcoming four-year renovation work being carried out on the building. The silencing of the bells is intended to protect the ears of construction workers from the 120-decibel noise, while avoiding obstructing their work with protective ear guards.
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While the Trades Union Congress, which advocates for workers’ rights, maintains this is a sensible measure, British right-wingers have geared up to attack one of their most hated bugbears: health and safety rules. “DEATH KNELL FOR COMMON SENSE,” rang out the front page of the right-wing Daily Mail Tuesday. “Big Ben silenced for FOUR years to protect workers’ hearing.... Yes it’s all down to health and safety!”
May is the highest-profile figure to criticize the decision, though fellow Cabinet minister David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has reportedly also described it as “mad.” More traditionally minded left-wingers haven’t wanted to be left out either. The Labour Party’s Steve Pound invoked the darkest days of wartime London Monday, saying: “They kept the bells tolling through the Blitz. The Luftwaffe could not stop it but health and safety has. There has to be a way around.”
So what will happen to the bell now? Liberal Democrat lawmaker Tom Brake, a spokesman for the House of Commons Commission that runs Parliament’s lower house, said Tuesday: “I have asked whether someone can do some work working out what the costings and the practicality of ringing [the bells] more frequently would be,” according to The Guardian.
Perhaps, then, London’s traditional soundscape will yet be preserved. Meanwhile, Britons are left wondering: If this is how much fuss it takes for the government to fix a clock, how worried should they be about Brexit negotiations?
