Attack of the terrorist monti hawkers

OK, by now we’ve all worked out that Renzo Piano (whatever one makes of his designs) is a world-renowned architect credited with being the best of his generation. What we might not have known, however, is that his buildings are also ‘dimensionally transcendental’.

For those not brought up on Doctor Who, that refers to a technology which enables any structure to be considerably larger on the inside than it appears on the outside. The best known example – indeed, the only known example for ‘dimensional transcendence’ was until very recently a technology unknown to humans – it was the TARDIS: the eponymous Doctor’s time-travelling vehicle, which took the external form of a blue London police box.

On the outside it is roughly the size of a standard public telephone booth. On the inside? Apart from living quarters, the TARDIS also houses a study, a swimming pool and bathroom, a sick bay, an ancillary power station disguised as an art gallery; a “cloister room”, an observatory, a library, a greenhouse, a baby room, a toy room and several squash courts… Not to mention the control room we see in every episode, which is already several times larger than the structure’s entire footprint.

Naturally, you have to be a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey to actually understand the physics behind such an improbable architectural achievement. Which makes me believe that Renzo Piano is, in fact, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He is already known as ‘The Master’ in architectural circles: so he is already a prime candidate for the secret identity of the Doctor’s nemesis.

But back to the dimensionally transcendental qualities of the new Parliament building. Some time ago, there was a small news item about ‘security concerns’ with this particular edifice. It was reported that there were not enough AFM soldiers available to guarantee security for such a large building.

And indeed this is probably true: the AFM’s current maximum personnel complement is around 2,000… and one would think they’re kind of busy right now, considering that the Mediterranean sea is turning into a graveyard all around us, and our Search and Rescue zone stretches all the way from Tunisia to Crete. 

But two things struck me about that news story. One: isn’t it kind of late to be having sudden epiphanies about the security levels needed for the new parliament building? It was commissioned in around 2005; and every last aspect of its very existence, from its earliest inception and throughout all its subsequent changes-of-plan, has been discussed and dissected in enormous detail ever since. And only now does someone finally realise that the security exigencies exceed the logistical capabilities of the AFM by an order of magnitude? Only now – 10 years later – does it become an issue?

The second thing, I admit, came to me somewhat later. All along there was something vaguely wrong with the entire story, and it took me a while to place my finger on it. Then it hit me. Hang on, what do we mean, more soldiers are needed to provide security at the new Parliament building? Why now? Why were they not needed before? 

It isn’t as though the institution of parliament itself has grown just because it’s moving to occupy a larger space, you know. It’s still 69 (varying here and there to 73) individual MPs, debating in a single chamber (which is open to the public). And to be technically precise, it isn’t even moving to a larger space, anyway. In fact, the move is to a smaller building, at least from a security point of view.

At present, Parliament occupies one hall of the Palace – the old armoury (which is kind of apt, come to think of it) – with offices and additional facilities spilling out into the adjacent corridor. If you only look at the amount of space currently occupied within the entire building… then yes, certainly the new House of Parliament is much larger. But from a security perspective, it is not just the assembly hall and the adjacent corridor that require surveillance. These are accessible from any part of the building. So it is the entire Grand Master’s Palace that must be considered when looking into security concerns. 

And the Grand Masters’ Palace in Valletta is a MUCH larger building than Piano’s parliament. Its footprint covers more than three times the surface area… and on all four sides there are dozens of large windows giving onto densely populated streets and squares at ground level. 

Yet all these years, it has never been considered a priority to beef up security presence in an enormous (and mostly vacant) palace, which one can literally break into from any angle. And the propensity for a serious security threat was infinitely higher for other reasons, too. Not only is the building itself much easier to penetrate… but once inside, there is literally no limit to the places you can hide, or the mischief you can get up to. 

The corridor leading to the parliament itself is lined with 17th century suits of armour, for crying out loud. You don’t need to be a homicidal terrorist maniac to put two and two together: even a small child brought up on Scooby Doo will instantly understand the security threat. You can hide in one of those suits and just wait for the right moment to strike.

Speaking of which: the best part of it (from the would-be terrorist or assassin’s point of view), is that you don’t even need to take any weapons in with you. They’re all already there, hanging on every wall and in every nook and cranny of the palace. Want to cause some bloodshed among MPs? You’re spoilt for choice really. You can smash their skulls with any of a dozen varieties of different medieval mace, for instance. If it’s a particularly thick skull you’re aiming to crack, you might want to pick out one of the spiked ones. For all the others together, maybe a two-handed, steel-shafted mattock… 

There are also swords and scimitars, spears and lances, polearms and halberds, battle-axes and tridents… Heck, there are even crossbows, arquebuses and primitive muskets to be found, if you want to explore a little before launching into your murderous attack. All that is lacking to officially qualify the Palace as a ‘terrorist-friendly environment’ is a complementary handbook on the correct use of mediaeval weaponry to cause maximum blunt trauma on unarmoured members of parliament. And maybe a fully functional internal mortar cannon, that can be wheeled up to the corridor and into the parliament hall itself.

This has been the security situation in the old Parliament ever since it is was first inaugurated in 1976… and even before, all the way back to when our parliament was first founded in 1921. It has always been housed in a huge and easily-infiltrated building, packed to the rafters with hundreds of potentially lethal armaments of every description. And there have never been more than half a dozen security personnel on duty at any one time.

Yet, now that Parliament is finally moving to a designated building with only one entrance, no accessible windows from street-level, and (one hopes) completely devoid of anything that can be used to ‘get medieval’ on an MP’s ass… suddenly, they start worrying about security. It doesn’t make sense.

Unless, of course, there really is a dimensionally transcendental quality to the new building that hasn’t been observed before. Perhaps more soldiers are needed because the building is actually much larger on the inside than out. 

Either that, or the move to a Renzo Piano building has had a dimensional transcendental effect on the institution of Parliament itself. Like I said, there is no change to the actual number of MPs…though I imagine there will be to the total number of staff employed by the institution as a whole. (Hey, someone’s got to sit in all those empty offices, you know: they were designed by the greatest architect in the world…) 

But what has clearly grown – and by an astonishing degree, too – is the importance with which Parliament views itself as a result of this move. It would seem that the mere fact of moving to a building designed for them by Renzo Piano has had such a profound impact on the size of the 69 MPs’ egos, that they now envisage threats to their security emanating from every conceivable angle. 

Like the monti, for instance. Suddenly, the proximity of an open air market to the House of Parliament represents a ‘security issue’. Yet for years, the same monti has been sited directly underneath the windows of the present Parliament building, without ever causing any paranoia to anyone. At any point in the last 15 years, a monti hawker (or customer) could have taken the opportunity to lob a hand-grenade into a plenary session from the street below. They could even have scaled the palace walls, broken into the building, then strangled an unsuspecting MP with a Triple-D-cup, red-lace reggipettu. (OK, I suppose you’d have to get the window open first… but then, if your plan is to blow up parliament, breaking a first-storey window doesn’t sound like much of a big deal, does it?)

So make no mistake: the lives of our 69 MPs have been manifestly threatened by alarming proximity to a (shudder!) street market – with all the propensity for terrorism this undeniably entails – for all these years… yet strangely, they never seemed to even notice the danger before. 

Now, not only do they see this danger with perfect clarity, but they even bring it up to be debated as a matter of urgency in the House… as the extent of their self-importance visibly swells to match the lavish building that has been designed to accommodate them.

In a sense, I almost pity the poor buggers. Until yesterday they lived a care-free existence, untroubled by the nefarious plots hatched daily against their lives by scheming monti hawkers in the streets below… now look at them: frightened, lest a rabid terrorist might be lurking around the next corner with homicidal intent. Insisting in panicky tones on armed protection from a host of newfound perils, that not one of them had ever so much as dreamt about before. 

So it ever was, I suppose: from self-importance comes paranoia; from paranoia, hysteria. But at least, they get to be hysterical and paranoid in a brand new, state-of-the-art building deigned for their benefit by a master Time-Lord from the planet Gallifrey. 

Fair exchange, I would think…