The former MP for Stalybridge and Hyde,who now sits in the House of Lords should be suspended for a week for angrily berating a member of security staff in behaviour that amounted to bullying, a standards watchdog has recommended.
Lord Tom Pendry,a junior minister in the Labour Government before being ennobled in 2001 was found by an investigation to have been “verbally aggressive” and exhibited “intimidating behaviour” to the security guard who had challenged an unescorted guest in Parliament.
The guard, who served in the Army, described being left “physically shaken and unnerved” after the “angry” peer challenged them and allegedly grabbed their radio during “a little bit of a tussle”.
The 87-year-old conceded he had “ticked off forcibly” the staff member but criticised security for “flexing their muscles” against politicians in a manner he has not seen in his half-a-century in Parliament.
“I think that normally, you know, it’s like you going to the headmaster and getting the cane,” he told investigators as he hit out at the “bureaucratic” process.
