Health & Safety: What Would Jesus Do? Weep, Obviously.

I hold no particular brief for the people “occupying” the London Stock Exchange but whatever one may think of their aims it’s evident that in closing the cathedral this week the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and his colleagues have behaved like total ninnies. Then again, this is the Church of England so a certain measure of hand-wringing may be part of the job description at St Paul’s. Who knows? What we do know, thanks in large part to this splendid, exhaustive, post by David Allen Green is that the so-called “health and safety” concerns are so feeble they could almost be a parody of CoE hopelessness.

Among the “possible” threats to “life and limb”:

Smoking/drinking within the tented areas. Slips, trips and falls exacerbated at night with cover of darkness. Sleeping risk within the tented area, if fire should break out. The issues of rope/guy-lines attached to trees, bollards, lamp standards possibly causing injury to face/neck/upper limbs and trips on low level guy-lines.

There is more but you get the idea and Jesus Wept and all that. But, hark, there is hope! The cathedral may reopen on Friday so the Lord and Mammon may each get back to business. It seems some of these Blitz-comparable concerns have been addressed. Namely:

The kitchen providing food for those in the camp has been moved from close proximity to the building, bicycles chained to the railings have been shifted and a clear pathway restored.

You got that? A camp stove has been moved and bicycles chained – chained, I tell you! – to the railings have been shifted! Order is on the point of being restored, pending (of course and god help us) another “risk assessment”. The seriousness of these concerns should be neither under-estimated nor mocked. Who among us has not seen an urban campsite and feared for the sanctity of “life and limb”?

Verily, it’s enough to provoke anyone’s buried-Littlejohn and a reminder that if the Church of England is in trouble it may be because it is overstocked with simpering nincompoops whose witterings invite contempt, not sympathy.

The protestors may be deluded but they’re evidently peaceful and a threat only to dimwits. Let them camp, let them protest and don’t blame them for the feebleness of St Paul’s Cathedral.