Detectives in Hull today launched a murder hunt following the discovery of what experts believe to be the remains of John Prescott’s working class values.

 

The find - which combined the physical characteristics of Andy Capp with the political rhetoric of Alf Garnett - was made early this morning in the upmarket region of Kirkella.

 

‘It was heaped in the gutter,’ said Mr Nouveau-Riche. ‘Like a skin shed by a huge snake, albeit a snake that was wearing a flat cap while smoking a roll-up and reading The Racing Post.’

 

‘It looked as if it had been dying for about a decade, but I still had to call an extraordinary meeting of the Parish Council to allay fears that the blue-collar beast might negatively affect house prices.’

 

Inspector Fred Mason is confident the culprit will be caught, despite a post mortem yielding nothing except a trace of guacamole, which the victim is thought to have consumed prior to death in the mistaken belief that it was mushy peas.

 

He said: ‘We often treat a murder hunt like a game of Cluedo, apart from the Soham inquiry of course, during which we put our fingers in our ears and went “la la la la” until it went away.’

 

‘For example,’ he explained, ‘a possible Colonel Mustard might be John Major committing an act of gross indecency with an exit poll, still angry at his defeat in the 1997 general election.’

 

‘Professor Plum, on the other hand, might be a purple-with-rage Tony Benn twatting the former Deputy Prime Minister with a statue of Saddam Hussein, in payback for the prostituting of British troops to George W. Bush.’

 

‘And then there’s Miss Scarlet, who is of course former diary secretary and alleged one-time lover Tracey Temple, broken-hearted and traumatised by endless nights spent comforting the New Labour stooge as he sobbed in his underpants beneath his favourite portrait of Sir Harold Wilson.’

 

‘My money is on Temple,’ he added. ‘Or as she’s known in the sweepstake I’m running at the station: Captain Ahab.’