Hat tip to Evie and Rupa for reminding me of this. That's why when you hear of an MP or a Peer collapsing from a fatal heart attack or stroke in the Palace of Westminster, it is stated that they died later at St Thomas's Hospital.
But why do we have such a ruling and surely that means the records are wrong when they state that Spencer Percival died almost instantly when he was shot through the heart in the lobby of the House of Commons!
Sometimes pedantry takes you to strange places.
1 comment:
It doesn't happen that oftne though. To my knowledge, the last death where this polite fiction had to be applied was on 10 February, 1983, when the Welsh Office minister Michael Roberts collapsed in the Chamber. Eyewitnesses I have spoken to since insist he was dead before his body even touched the floor, but it was indeed stated on his death certificate that he died at St Thomas's.
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