BoJob’s boneheaded ‘bung a bob’ stunt will appeal to Brexit-boosting berks
Boneheaded: The only people who will be able to hear Big Ben chime for Brexit will be those close to the Palace of Westminster. The rest of us will hear it via TV or radio, and it might as well be the recording of Big Ben held by the BBC.
This is both boneheaded stupidity and a blinding masterstroke at the same time.
It’s the language that he uses, you see.
You and I might think Boris Johnson asking people to “bung a bob for a Big Ben bong” to mark Brexit is a patronising insult; an attempt to curry support by talking down to us in the way he thinks we speak.
But Brexiteers and Tories will find it – God help us! – endearing.
Some might say it’s a blessing that he is asking members of the public to stump up the cash to pay for Big Ben to ring on January 31.
But why is it going to cost £500,000, anyway?
And what difference will it make, really? They could use the recording of the chimes that the BBC has been using for the past I-don’t-know-how-many years.
The only people who would know the difference are those within half a mile of the Houses of Parliament.
So this is a vanity project for the sake of a few MPs. Maybe they should be the ones stumping up the cash?
Boris Johnson has suggested that members of the public could raise half a million pounds so Big Ben can bong to mark Brexit.
Calls from Brexiteers for the famous bell to chime on 31 January to mark the moment Britain leaves the European Union had been scuppered after the move was deemed to be too costly.
But … the prime minister said the government was looking into a crowdfunding campaign to raise the £500,000 needed for the idea to go ahead.
He told the BBC: “We are working up a plan so people can bung a bob for a Big Ben bong.”
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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The Tinpot Dictator obviously believes that the general public all “read” (or that should be look at the pictures in) the S*n. Never forget he’s just a cheapskate fifth-rate “journalist” who was sacked because he’s an inveterate liar. Nothing’s changed.
Sorry… doesnt big ben chime the hours etc anyway? or was it stopped?(if so i must have missed that news.). never the less. £500,000 to make a bell chime once for only one occasion? surely that amount of money should be used for somethhing more important. like helping those on the streets in some way. or at least some of them, cash strapped hospitals and other NHS departments. theres a whole load of things more important than chiming a bell to mark something like this.
Yes, there’s a huge repair project at the Palace of Westminster and the bell was taken down – and apart – for purposes of restoration. That’s why Mr Johnson was appealing for half a million pounds to put it back together again.
You touch on a good point, though – why should the public pay part of the cost of a project that has its own budget already? Just bring the completion of the bell forward!
Well that’s certainly a tongue-twister! I’m sure there are better things in need of funding than some Nationalistic vanity project, send the money to Australia or fund the foodbanks.
I expect that the money will miraculously appear in good time. The kind of Establishment creature who supports Brexit and BoJob will have loads of cash to help out. 200K is just small change to the people he represents.
How about Flybe shareholders?
They are due to get a government cash injection. Won’t the company management be pocketing a big slice of the action first, before letting the firm collapse, leaving the workforce out of a job and with no pension scheme.
THEY could easily pay the cost.
Yikes, with bags of lettuce and lashing of ginger beer, jolly well back to the fifties and bluster away on the Bob a job scouts fund raising! Back to the Festival of Britain, perhaps to the glory days when the aristocracy returned from their safe havens in America, fortunes intact, and the workers were hungry, food rationed, living with a housing crisis in bombed cities amidst piles of bricks and shattered industry. That was my experience of the 50s.
So with Brexit, we are now facing an economic crisis as bad a losing a major war for the masses, but it will be the class war of Boris we have lost. And he expects us to celebrate it with tawdry spectacles.
I feel angry and insulted that this clown is our PM.
(Of course back in the day of bob a job scouts it was actually worth something to real workers. It was half an hours wage for most women, so say £3.80 now).
I think it’s better to spend money on Compassion than Big Ben Bongs, so I’ve set up an alternative GoFundMe page to make a statement that some of us value human beings over Nationalism. I’m sure I’m wasting my time, and I hate being irritating by suggesting donations, but I figured I should try – donations will make an amazing difference to the world’s poorest children.
gf.me/u/xcq4ct
Personally, methinks that any celebrations would be premature. Sure, we’ll have officially left the E.U. but technically, we’ll still be in it so, why make such a big deal ahead of actual severance? It’s a nonsense and don’t get me started on the money!