Have we lost our minds?

The shops were closing down for the day as I walked through Bristol’s decaying Broadmead Shopping Centre last night. There was drizzle in the air and although it was not winter-cold, it would have been cold enough if you had been sleeping out. And in 21st century Britain, in the heart of our great city, there were plenty of people doing just that.

More upsetting still, I felt, was a line of people arriving to get some food and a hot drink from a group of volunteers who had set up a wooden table. I took some photographs which did not do the scene justice. My photos showed what appeared to be a small group of around 25 people but there were far many more people than that. Others were huddled in the doorways of some of the many closed down shops. In Bristol, we have more than a homelessness problem: we have a growing community of people who have literally nothing.

Then, I thought about why it is that there are men and women who have nowhere to live and have to rely on the generous donations of others? The answer is easy: it’s a political choice. It’s our political choice.

Earlier this week, PM Boris Johnson once again employed his clown act, joshing with a BBC presenter about how he would arrange for a crowd-funded Big Ben bong in order to celebrate/mark our departure from Europe. The bell has been silent because of essential renovation work and it will cost £500,000 to let it ring. Naturally, the red top newspapers thought this to be a marvellous thing. The nation could be united around dividing the nation still further. The hard right, who have won Brexit, could gaslight half the country and make them feel even worse about everything we, but more importantly the next generation, are about to lose. Half a million quid.

I realise that in Bristol, £500,000 does not go far in terms of buying places for people to live in. However, it’s still an awful lot of money. I don’t have any figures at hand, but I’ll bet you could buy a lot of hot meals and find somewhere warm for a good few people to sleep, if only for a few days. After all, the Big Ben bongs would be over in a matter of seconds. All this is why I wonder if we have lost our minds.

But today, we learn that the whole thing has descended into farce. After Johnson said the government was looking at ways of ensuring ‘people can bung a bob for a Big Ben bong’, he has now disassociated himself from it, as his spokesman (Dominic Cummings) said Johnson is looking at official ways of celebrating/marking the occasion. This might be because there is no legal basis to accept public donations. Idiots, led by chief idiot Mark Francois MP, have only raised £160,000 so far and they have said if they can’t ring the bell, they’ll play a recording of Big Ben bonging and give the money to Help for Heroes. My suggestion is that given so many heroes gave their lives for their country, why not give that money to them anyway?

The Big Ben bonging is an accurate reflection of where we are as a country and where we are going. An inward-looking, angry, divided nation pulling up the drawbridge to a world that looks to us in horror, amusement and pity.