Someone is picking the leaves off trees at the UK parliament, one by one

In scenes that would be better suited to the rose gardens of Alice In Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts, someone is manually picking the leaves off the trees at Westminster Palace.

The unbelievable sight at the home of the UK parliament was first spotted by the Daily Telegraph's Senior Political Correspondent, Christopher Hope, who tweeted a photo of the work in progress, captioned: "This is how Autumn happens in the Palace of Westminster. The lady on the ladder is pulling the leaves off the trees."

The tweet, which quickly caught the public eye, has been dubbed #LeafGate, and was so unusual that Sky reporter Darren McCaffrey went to the scene personally to verify it himself.

Incredible, perhaps - but true, having been verified by both the gardener and an official spokesperson. And apparently, they do this every year.

In a report for the Telegraph, a spokesperson for the House of Commons told the paper: "If we waited for the leaves to fall off it would waste a lot of time raking them up. It is more time efficient."

The gardener in question told Hope that she was "pleaching" the trees - a term normally used to refer to intertwining branches in hedgerows or trees which cover walkways.

Politics, eh?