British intelligence chiefs called yesterday for the Houses of Parliament to be surrounded by a "ring of steel" to prevent a terrorist strike on Big Ben.
A bomb aimed accurately at the 148-year-old clock tower could cause it to topple into the Commons chamber when MPs are sitting, a report from
MI5 warned.
The spy agency also recommended that the large concrete blocks surrounding the Palace of Westminster be removed because they could be turned into "lethal projectiles" by a suicide bomber crashing a car into them.
But many of its recommendations, in an interim report to the House of Commons Commission, are unlikely to be acted upon, as authorities fear such stringent measures could turn a place of work into a fortress.
