A time warp in Westminster

I travelled down to London again yesterday. At Euston, as it has been the last four or five times I've arrived there, the escalator down to the Underground was boxed off and ornamented by a sign saying that the escalator refurbishment would be going on until December, with only one escalator in operation at any time. Passengers going down are expected to walk - some of them dragging heavy suitcases behind them; some of them making heavy weather of the climb due to infirmity.

At the ticket office level, a further escalator - to the Victoria and Northern lines - is closed for routine maintenance which is, apparently, going to take six weeks.

Arriving at Westminster and walking past the seat of government, I couldn't help noticing that the alterations to the roadway immediately outside Parliament have been completed in record time. On my trip the time before last they hadn't started; last time they were in full flow, with the entire road including halfway down Millbank cordoned off and the roadway excavated; now (only a week later) the works are complete, the barriers are being removed and the road is paved in shiny new blocks.

The message is, it's important not to inconvenience those important civil servants and MPs as they hurry about their job of running the country. The average citizen can be forced to endure months of inconvenience because they don't matter.