LONDON NEWS
TUPNews recently visited The Mall, in London.
The Mall is a wide boulevard that connects Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square. To the south lie the tourists and pelicans of St. James’ Park; to the north, the joggers and lunchbreakers of Green Park. The Mall is flanked by a series of flagpoles, which usually bear the Union Jack. In an effort to increase my lung capacity, I have taken to running the length of The Mall, as well as a circuit of Green Park, every lunch hour.
Today I left my gym kit in the office, however, in order to join the throng waiting to catch a glimpse of the outgoing Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as he left Buckingham Palace after tendering his resignation to the Queen.
It’s been a while since I thronged, and Mall throngs are some of the best in the world. In this I was disappointed, however. Save a small police presence and a handful of cameramen, no one in the vicinity seemed to have any clue that one of Britain’s great constitutional rituals was unfolding yards away. The sense of anticlimax was eerie: I felt like grabbing tourists and breathlessly explaining constitutional monarchy in theory and practice.
Earlier I had snuck down to the Hand and Racquet to watch another great example of British political theatre: Blair’s final Prime Minister’s Questions on a bartop TV. The tone was more civilised, more elegiac, than I expected. David Cameron, the Leader of the Opposition, lobbed Blair four consecutive softballs, before paying tribute to the cordiality of their working relationship. Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Ian Paisley, leader of the DUP, followed suit. Blair seemed wistful; Brown seemed bored, and fidgeted. I read later that PMQs ended with a unanimous standing ovation, although the BBC had by then inexplicably switched back to the tennis.
Down on The Mall, I asked a photographer whether I had in fact missed the departing Blair.
“No, he’s still in there,” he said. “No-one seems to give a shit – even the protestors have stayed home.”
“One Jaguar looks like another,” he added, sanguine.
The Mall is a wide boulevard that connects Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square. To the south lie the tourists and pelicans of St. James’ Park; to the north, the joggers and lunchbreakers of Green Park. The Mall is flanked by a series of flagpoles, which usually bear the Union Jack. In an effort to increase my lung capacity, I have taken to running the length of The Mall, as well as a circuit of Green Park, every lunch hour.
Today I left my gym kit in the office, however, in order to join the throng waiting to catch a glimpse of the outgoing Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as he left Buckingham Palace after tendering his resignation to the Queen.
It’s been a while since I thronged, and Mall throngs are some of the best in the world. In this I was disappointed, however. Save a small police presence and a handful of cameramen, no one in the vicinity seemed to have any clue that one of Britain’s great constitutional rituals was unfolding yards away. The sense of anticlimax was eerie: I felt like grabbing tourists and breathlessly explaining constitutional monarchy in theory and practice.
Earlier I had snuck down to the Hand and Racquet to watch another great example of British political theatre: Blair’s final Prime Minister’s Questions on a bartop TV. The tone was more civilised, more elegiac, than I expected. David Cameron, the Leader of the Opposition, lobbed Blair four consecutive softballs, before paying tribute to the cordiality of their working relationship. Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Ian Paisley, leader of the DUP, followed suit. Blair seemed wistful; Brown seemed bored, and fidgeted. I read later that PMQs ended with a unanimous standing ovation, although the BBC had by then inexplicably switched back to the tennis.
Down on The Mall, I asked a photographer whether I had in fact missed the departing Blair.
“No, he’s still in there,” he said. “No-one seems to give a shit – even the protestors have stayed home.”
“One Jaguar looks like another,” he added, sanguine.
But even as he said this, the motorbike cordon was firing up its blue lights. Blair’s limo slid silently past clueless tourists. For the first time, I saw him in person – just a two-second flash, through a tinted window, as he passed me in the car. He was talking to his wife, and bore the tired and mildly-distracted expression of someone waiting for his baggage at the end of a long holiday.
posted by oliver at Wednesday, June 27, 2007
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