Angry probation officers flooded into Parliament in such numbers yesterday that an overflow committee room had to be commandeered for their anti-privatisation lobby.

MPs who hurried from one packed room to another were greeted with boisterous applause as they pledged support for the fight to stop privatisation of 70 per cent of the probation service.

Probation union Napo general secretary Ian Lawrence warned MPs that his members were so furious about the government's dangerous proposals that industrial action was now "a racing certainty."