THE horrifying Samurai sword attack on Cheltenham MP Nigel Jones which resulted in the death of his aide, Gloucestershire County Councillor Andrew Pennington, has focused the media spotlight on security for top politicians. Lancashire Evening Telegraph reporters RALPH MARSHALL and PAUL SMITH asked East Lancashire's MPs for their reaction to the attack

AMONG the least glamorous aspects of an MP's job are the surgeries he or she holds for constituents to listen to their gripes and problems.

Surgeries are usually held at weekends in local community centres or clubs when the MP has returned from a week in London - and they are often the last port of call for somebody whose grievance has not been dealt with by councillors or council officers. Tensions can often run high.

For East Lancashire's MPs, the Cheltenham incident has concentrated minds - even though it is unlikely to have any major impact on the format of their traditional surgeries or on their security arrangements.

Pendle MP Gordon Prentice revealed he had been threatened by a constituent in 1998 but still rejected the idea of bodyguards.

He said: "I think bodyguards would be impractical. I was threatened with violence myself, but I don't think bodyguards would work."

Mr Prentice refused to give details of the incident but revealed he had been speaking to Nigel Jones less than 48 hours before the incident in Cheltenham.

He said: "I spoke to him on Wednesday because I sit on a committee with him. When I found out this had happened it was a shock." Burnley MP Peter Pike has also ruled out the use of bodyguards for MPs to protect them from attack by obsessive constituents. But he called for careful consideration and debate on all aspects of security for Members of Parliament, who he believed were more vulnerable to attack.

He said he too had almost parallel situations in Burnley in which residents who had lost their homes, wives and jobs had come to him for help for various reasons.

And he revealed that on some occasions he had referred matters to the police because of his concern for them.

But Mr Pike, recognised as one of the country's hardest-working MPs holding around 40 surgeries a year, said he had never been threatened and ruled out Mr Jones' call for bodyguards.

"I think the cost would be prohibitive. I hold surgeries, live and shop in Burnley and go to football matches here.

"If you have bodyguards, where do you draw the line?"

"I do not think we should overstate the problem but security of MPs does need careful thought and discussion."

Mr Pike said said he too had one or two very difficult and persistent cases at his surgeries. Some wrote to him every other day and visited his surgeries every week.

He said: "The difficult thing is to try to persuade people, no-matter how unjust the situation, that there can come a point where I cannot help them further, that they must draw a line under it and to go forward.

"Sometimes the problems become an obsession."

Mr Pike said despite the Cheltenham tragedy, MPs had to go on holding open surgeries. "It is absolutely crucial they continue," he added.

Home Secretary and Blackburn MP Jack Straw already has bodyguards because of his prominent position in the Government.

He said: "I will be meeting with the representatives of other political parties to discuss security improvements for MPs and their staff.

"This incident will not stop me conducting my regular soapbox in King William Street, Blackburn."

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope rejected the idea of MPs having bodyguards in the wake of the Nigel Jones incident.

He said: "I shall be holding my surgery this weekend as normal as I am sure my colleagues will be. We do not want a knee-jerk reaction on the back of a tragic but one-off incident.

"One of the frequent complaints about MPs is that they are out of touch with their voters but open surgeries are one of the ways that they can keep in contact with them."

Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans said: "Constituents need access to their MPs and we should not have a knee-jerk reaction over one tragic incident."

He added that he has run surgeries for more than eight years, some of which run from 10am to 7pm at the weekends, so that people who work during the week can have the opportunity to speak to their MP openly. Mr Evans said that MPs having bodyguards was too drastic a measure and that the attack in Cheltenham was a one-off tragedy.

"If MPs have bodyguards then where does it stop? Attacks against individuals unfortunately happen on a regular basis, but does that mean that everyone should have a bodyguard or should constituents be searched before they come into surgeries?

"It's out of the question and I will never ever go down that road. I'm distressed for MP Nigel Jones and the family of Andrew Pennington, but people need to feel that they can speak to their MP," he said.

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