at around 2pm yesterday, a plucky female activist, caroline, drove her blue rover car straight through the entrance gates at parliament. normally cars are stopped and id badges are checked, but as it was budget day, there was quite a lot of volume of traffic going into parliament and police were more preoccupied with stopping pedestrians getting in the way of the great and mighty than with checking identities. once inside the compound, she was approached by police who realised their mistake, and she was led off for questioning while her car was checked and searched.

after being held a few hours she was released - police decided that although there were "various charges they could bring", they'd release her with a warning not to do it again, "at least, not this week!"

perhaps police were determined to play it down for two reasons.

first, if it came out widely in the media it might give others ideas - we all know a majority of the country would like to see a succesful citizen's arrest of blair for his war crimes.

secondly, because of the embarassment of such a security breach at a time that the government is using fear of terrorism as a means of control (not least, right outside parliament where it was the biggest factor continuously brought up in court to justify ridding parliament square of brian haw's magnificent protest site).