THE EU'S MEANINGLESS SQUIGGLES

My favourite London underground station, if anyone can have such a thing, is Westminster station. As you leave the station and climb the few steps to exit the station there facing you is the full majesty of our sovereign Houses of Parliament with St Stephens Tower reaching up before you. This is the tower which houses the clock and Big Ben.

To me it is a wonderful sight every time I leave that station, I don’t think I can ever tire of it, the Palace of Westminster is a wonderful building both inside and out. Tourist flock to it from all parts of the world and have their photos taken outside, nearly every photo album across to world probably has a photo of a family member grinning in front of Parliament with, what everyone calls Big Ben (St Stephens Tower), growing out of their head.

When it was deemed we needed a new design to replace the old Houses of Parliament, which had been damaged by fire, a competition was organised for the best design which was won by Charles Barry, with influence from Pugin. Each competitor in the design competition had an individual logo and Charles Barry’s logo was the Portcullis, which became the symbol of Parliament – that logo is an iconic symbol of our Houses of Parliament and used on all the headed paper of our Members of Parliament It is in green for the Commons and red for the Lords. Now a twit has decided the Portcullis symbol is not right as he thinks it is seen by the public as a gate to keep them out.

This twit is Dr Jonathan Drori, who is the chairman of the Speaker’s Advisory Council on Public Engagement. Obviously having John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, who is a twit of great renown, obviously helped Dr Dori get his job – these two must have been made for each other.

Dr Drori considers the Portcullis logo to be “hardly welcoming” and decided Parliament “can be a very intimidating place”. He thinks the “iconography” of Parliament puts people off. He also thinks that a new visitor’s centre and welcoming signs would make the members of public more at home.

The only thing that can be deduced from all of this is the fact our Parliament is now so hamstrung and subservient to the EU it should turned into a play area where tourist and visitors can do the Parliament thing.

The Portcullis symbol has served Parliament well, we take one look at it and it means something, it is protective and stands firm. When an envelope with the portcullis symbol on it comes through a person’s letter box it has authority and importance. It should not be relegated to the history books and replaced by some meaningless modern squiggles, which is rather like the EU Commissions new logo which has cost us all a fortune to design.

This meaningless design, which the EU Commission squandered £112,000 of taxpayers’ money on, has a few squiggly lines on the top, a block of blue on the bottom and in a box with the EU’s noose of gold stars, the words ‘European Commission’ – I’m sure we are all thrilled to have spent so much money on this!

If we want our own Parliament in Westminster to mean something and for its Portcullis symbol to stand proud, then we have to leave the EU and its meaningless squiggles.