Security breach at Houses of Parliament

It has emerged that there has been a breach in security at the Houses of Parliament. It is not the point that it has not been committed by a suspected terrorist, or a nutter with a knife or a replica gun. A breach of security is a breach of security whoever the perpetrator is. The guilty party in this case is Andrew Feldman, chief fundraiser to David Cameron. He has no business walking the corridors of power with a security pass that should not be in his possession. It is not clear whether the security pass has Andrew Feldman's name upon it, but he is "using a researcher pass allotted to a Conservative peer who has no parliamentary office and asks for no research". That alone should be cause for those in charge of security at the Houses of Parliament to require that he leaves what is supposed to be a secure area, if not call the police to arrest him. If evidence was needed that the Tory Party has not really cleaned up its act, this is it. A senior member of the Lords Privileges Committee said the news that a party fundraiser was using a parliamentary security pass shows how fundraising, "pollutes our politics".

The Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: "Researcher passes are exactly that: passes for researchers. They are not freebies to be handed out to those raising funds for political parties."