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No death in the Palace
Nov. 7th, 2007 12:03 pmI will have regaled a fair few of you over the past couple of years with my favourite fact about Parliament, which is that you’re not allowed to die there. I have to admit to a twinge of regret that suddenly there’s hardly anyone left to spring it on, since it will soon be everyone’s favourite fact about the place.
Anyone attempting to die on the parliamentary estate will find that they left the premises alive and were pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. The reason that convention dictates you can’t meet your maker in the Palace of Westminster is not, as it was first told to me, that anyone who dies there is technically entitled to a state funeral [1], but that, as it’s technically a royal palace, a Royal Coroner would have to investigate your death—and, a colleague told me, these days there’s no such thing as a Royal Coroner. (EDIT: In fact there is, but the logistics are so nightmarish, involving juries consisting entirely of the royal household, that it’s better for everyone if the whole business is avoided.)
In fact, a colleague was explaining to me, it’s because when Diana died her body was flown home and taken to St James’s Palace that there was such a ridiculous holdup in sorting out her inquest: “If she’d been held in some local undertaker’s near Brize Norton, the whole thing could have been held soon afterwards in Oxford Crown Court and everything would have been dealt with years ago,” she said. “But no, she had to be taken to a palace, and suddenly they had to involve the Royal Coroner, who was supposed to convene a royal jury. And the whole farce went on from there.”
One thing, though: no-one who has reported this story seems able to produce the actual “law” in question. Given that the law voted third most ridiculous in this survey, a Liverpudlian bylaw that bans women from going topless in public unless they work in a tropical fish store, does not exist (the rule “is something that has been heard of before and does crop up from time to time, but it is absurd,” said a spokesman for the city council; “It is a myth and totally made up. It has no basis in fact” [Telegraph]), there’s no reason to think that there is any such legislation, but everyone has happily gone ahead and regurgitated the press release anyway. I know that in this case it’s only a cute “And finally” item, but laziness like this is exactly how canards get started...
[1] Apparently no-one has told author Nigel Cawthorne, who is quoted in the Telegraph as saying “Anyone who dies there is technically entitled to a state funeral”. Then again, a quick shufti at the potboilers he has churned out in his time should pretty much disqualify him from being considered an expert witness.
Anyone attempting to die on the parliamentary estate will find that they left the premises alive and were pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. The reason that convention dictates you can’t meet your maker in the Palace of Westminster is not, as it was first told to me, that anyone who dies there is technically entitled to a state funeral [1], but that, as it’s technically a royal palace, a Royal Coroner would have to investigate your death—and, a colleague told me, these days there’s no such thing as a Royal Coroner. (EDIT: In fact there is, but the logistics are so nightmarish, involving juries consisting entirely of the royal household, that it’s better for everyone if the whole business is avoided.)In fact, a colleague was explaining to me, it’s because when Diana died her body was flown home and taken to St James’s Palace that there was such a ridiculous holdup in sorting out her inquest: “If she’d been held in some local undertaker’s near Brize Norton, the whole thing could have been held soon afterwards in Oxford Crown Court and everything would have been dealt with years ago,” she said. “But no, she had to be taken to a palace, and suddenly they had to involve the Royal Coroner, who was supposed to convene a royal jury. And the whole farce went on from there.”
One thing, though: no-one who has reported this story seems able to produce the actual “law” in question. Given that the law voted third most ridiculous in this survey, a Liverpudlian bylaw that bans women from going topless in public unless they work in a tropical fish store, does not exist (the rule “is something that has been heard of before and does crop up from time to time, but it is absurd,” said a spokesman for the city council; “It is a myth and totally made up. It has no basis in fact” [Telegraph]), there’s no reason to think that there is any such legislation, but everyone has happily gone ahead and regurgitated the press release anyway. I know that in this case it’s only a cute “And finally” item, but laziness like this is exactly how canards get started...
[1] Apparently no-one has told author Nigel Cawthorne, who is quoted in the Telegraph as saying “Anyone who dies there is technically entitled to a state funeral”. Then again, a quick shufti at the potboilers he has churned out in his time should pretty much disqualify him from being considered an expert witness.
