House of Commons officials today apprehended a vagrant who they found asleep in the chamber on one of the Labour front benches.
The man was escorted from the Palace of Westminster to loud protests by a phalanx of security men and it later transpired that he had been living rough in the chamber for at least twenty years.
A spokesman for the Parliament police detail said later: "We have today ejected a down-and-out who was in a disgusting state - covered in cobwebs and he had obviously been wearing the same clothes for many years.
"He claimed to be a Labour MP and said his name was Dennis Skinner but we weren't falling for that old trick, and threw himn out on his ear along with his snarling dog and flea-infested bed roll. He kept trying to tell us he was something called the 'The Beast of Bolsover' but the mangy mutt was the only 'beast' around at the time."
The veteran Labour MP later issued a statement from his office under the arches of Westminster Bridge claiming that the human rights of both himself and his dog Widdecombe had been abused and that he was going to sue the Sergeant-at-Arms for defamation of character, theft of his only copy of this week's Big Issue, a bag of cold chips and an unopened can of extra strong cider.
