Miss Scornwell - who can tell the gender of a rapist by the taste of his seed - believes the recently discovered pile of severed principles might be related to a number of unsolved murders targeting prominent Labour politicians and stretching back more than a decade.

 

According to Scornwell the assailant first struck in the late 1980s when he stole a pair of Margaret Thatcher’s tights and attempted to strangle the then Labour Leader Neil Kinnock.

 

‘It was backstage at the Labour Party Conference,’ she explained. ‘But the attacker was interrupted and Mr. Kinnock managed to escape, though he did turn a little blue, which was evident from his subsequent speech on privatization.’

 

She went on to say: ‘A few years later the killer posted to Conservative Party HQ John Prescott’s liver, stuffed in an envelope marked “From Hull”. Fortunately a free market substitute was privately sourced and the former Deputy Prime Minister woke to nothing more painful than a lack of public accountability.

 

But Scornwell claims that the killer’s greatest trick was when he razored off Gordon Brown’s face and stitched it over that of an inept Tory back-bencher, kidnapped from a Gents lavatory on Hampstead Heath.

 

‘The switch is betrayed by the obviously misshapen visage,’ she said. ‘Not to mention the terrified victim behind the mask, who can often be seen to tremble during Prime Minister’s Questions.’

 

Though yet to identify a prime suspect, it’s understood that Scornwell intends to visit Saddleworth Moor, where rumour has it former spin doctor Alaister Campbell frequently wanders about trying to remember where he buried the corpse of old Labour.

 

She said: ‘Some think he and Peter Mandelson disposed of it in the foundations of the Millennium Dome, but I’m sure I’ve seen Tony Benn’s pipe poking up through the heather.’