Political Vermin

The British parliament. Home to generation upon generation of political vermin. Those who break the rules and customs and do the unthinkable: crossing the aisle to the opposition. Heinous in every way in Britain and sure to bring cries of, "Shame, shame," from members.

But really, quite normal behavior for a mouse.

The House of Commons is suffering from a plague of mice, but the authorities have turned down requests for a cat to scare them away.

They can be seen regularly scampering around reporters' rooms, and even in the bar in the press gallery. The small brown mice are increasingly bold - even tame- emerging in the evening.

One was found contentedly eating crumbs on a political correspondent's desk, and was not disposed to move until the last morsel was consumed.

The Daily Telegraph room has several mice running around on the floor, or nesting behind their computers. They have been seen running up and down desks, and over the computer keyboards, leaving behind unsavoury droppings.

The latest invasion could be another sign of global warming. But it is more likely to be the result of major structural changes to the Press Gallery during the recent long summer recess, when the rooms were shut up for months.

A sign of global warming? Good Lord. More likely a sign of poor vermin control. Oh well, maybe when the next Black Plague breaks out they'll get around to buying a cat.

Six years ago, there was consternation when a small brown mouse appeared in the Commons chamber during a debate on a Bill to allow members of the Irish Parliament to stand for election to Westminster. Unlike its political counterparts it showed no compunction in crossing the floor of the House.

To cries of "shame" the mouse moved from the Labour benches, across the chamber and over to the Opposition.

Liberal Democrat MP Mark Oaten was also a witness to the mouse's brief political career.

He said at the time: "It flirted with New Labour for a bit and came to the Tories, and as a Liberal Democrat I made a lunge for it - but like an England cricketer I let it slip.

"I think the moral of the story is we need a cat to try and stop this sort of thing happening in the future."

Once a mouse upstaged Winston Churchill when he was delivering a mighty post-war oration in the Commons. Astonishingly, he could not command the attention of MPs.

Instead, all eyes were on the small brown mouse, which was slowly and purposefully crossing the floor of the Commons from beneath the Government benches to the Opposition benches across the way.

Do mice stand for election to parliament or do they scamper?