Albert, The Stuffed Anaconda.

Until yesterday Albert the Stuffed Anaconda led a quiet life hanging under a shelf at the Foreign Office minding his own business. That all changed when William Hague, searching for a way to give his faltering career a much-needed boost, spied him and thought "That's the kind of project that will put my name in front of the public and increase my popularity." Fortunately it just so happened that he had a spare £10,000 of taxpayers money saved from last year's Christmas party and the rest is history. "This is the sort of epoch-making policy decision that makes the Tory party great," Lord Ashcroft, the party's official historian told the "News In Shorts." Our reporter caught up with Albert as he waited for his life-saving operation at an expensive private taxidermist in Harley Street; "I hadn't realised how badly I needed stuffing until William Hague pointed it out to me. As he said, the Tories have stuffed the rest of the country so why not me? His logic, when he put it that way, was irrefutable - so here I am." Our reporter asked him about his name. "Albert? It's not my real name of course - I was originally named Pedro. I asked once why I was called Albert by everyone here in Britain and was told it was something to do with Prince Albert's prize-winning anatomical peculiarity. I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean."

Tories Spend Another Day In LaLa Land.

The Tories have had one of their most successful days since coming to power two and a half years ago. Flushed with the euphoria of ripping thmeselves to pieces over Europe, they have watched with pride as George Osborne, David Cameron and William Hague made complete arses of themselves. First up was the redoubtable George who, speaking in defence of Cameron's intention to sell out Britain over the EU budget, managed to get the phrase "What's best for Britain" into a short interview as many times as possible. Of course what he was really saying was that Cameron would do the minimum needed to keep himself in a job without frightening the lunatic fringe of the party. Nothing daunted "Call me Dave" was addressing the UN about the eradication of poverty. This apparently is possible by throwing money at foreign countries so they can arm themselves with the latest weapons and reclassifying poor people at home in Britain as "scroungers" while redefining anyone with a pot to piss in as fabulously wealthy. Meanwhile William Hague, determined to outbid his colleagues in the utter lunacy stakes, was defending his decision to spend £10,000 of taxpayers money on refurbishing a stuffed anaconda called Albert. You couldn't make it up.