Black Rod, snow shoes and shaving foam
Snow shoes, handcuffs and shaving foam are among the more unusual items confiscated from visitors to the Palace of Wesminster, as revealed by a freedom of information request.
In the 17th century, infamously, Guy Fawkes was able to smuggle several barrels of gunpowder into the Houses of Parliament.
By the 20th century, security had been tightened – but not enough to stop Fathers 4 Justice protesters from pelting the then prime minister, Tony Blair, with bags of purple powder in 2004.
Now a further tightening has seen a range of bizarrre objects quarantined by the Palace of Westminster’s crack police team.
A freedom of information request to the Metropolitan Police has revealed the sometimes bizarre items deemed unsuitable to bring into parliament this year. Apart from anything else, it gives a tantalising glimpse of the PR stunts and protests that might have been.
Handcuffs
The most-confiscated items were footballs – presumably taken in a bid to stop them being lobbed at the honourable members during parliamentary sessions, or perhaps to prevent lobby kickabouts to fill in the longueurs between votes.
The palace does not seem to be a natural home for musicians judging by the tally of musical instruments sequestered. Nine harmonicas and a guitar failed to make it into parliament, though it is unclear how many of those were repeat offences.
Other items that failed the entrance exam included: sleeping bag (1), scooters (14), sets of plastic handcuffs (3), giant tennis ball (1) and police helmets – child’s (5).
Unfortunately there are no explanations alongside some of the truly bizarre confiscations. One set of plastic thumbs was deemed inadmissible. Something intriguingly called “Mud Larking” was refused entry, and a magic wand and a set of snow-shoes were also kept at the door.
The fact that police found 11 cans of shaving foam during July would appear to show there has been a determined effort to encourage shaving among the more hirsute members of the house. Or perhaps a desire to produce the amount of publicity generated when media baron Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a shaving foam-wielding protester at neighbouring Portcullis House.
The House of Commons information office told Channel 4 News that there is no official list of banned items, what is confiscated simply depends on the judgement of the officers on duty, so perhaps on another day, the wand might have passed muster and been allowed in to work its magic in the House.
Unfortunately, records for much of 2010 have been destroyed “in line with record keeping procedures”.
