Littlejohn makes up another dog story

As Jonathan points out in his excellent post, today's Littlejohn column is dismal.

The main rant is about how he wanted to get mad at something he thought would happen, but which didn't. Yes, really. He dedicates 949 sodding words to how his recycling wasn't collected one day, and when he phoned the Council, they said they'd come and get it. How dare those evil Bin Nazis!

But the biggest cock-up of the day comes when he turns his attention to dogs. Of course, we know Littlejohn has had problems with researching dog related stories before.

This time, it's another of his entirely invented PC-gone-mad police stories:

The increasingly absurd Devon and Cornwall force has started replacing their German shepherds with springer spaniels, which are said to be 'less frightening'.

Isn't frightening the whole point of police dogs?

But as Jonathan makes clear, only a cursory use of Google can find out how true this is (clue: it isn't). The springer spaniels in question are rescue dogs. This news was up on the BBC website on Tuesday, so there can be no excuse that he hasn't done his research (again). Indeed, why not congratulate them on being:

the first in the country to train dogs solely for use in search and rescue operations.

To quote Jonathan:

And so, after upwards of 26 seconds of reading the BBC's less rabid account, I finally get a glimpse of the truth...these dogs will literally only be used to rescue people and find people who have gone missing, like for example lost children, with the old big dogs used for everything else. Meaning that they're not being 'replaced' either.

Well done Richard. Expect a clarification in Tuesday's column.

He turns to politics, and mentions the fact Sarah Brown had introduced her husband at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. Littlejohn says:

In keeping with the latest political fad, I had thought of asking my wife to introduce the column this week.

Which sounds like a good idea. She can't be any worse, surely?

This piece includes a mention of Peter Mandelson's partner:

at least we were spared Reinaldo's version of how Mandy makes a mess in the bathroom when he's dyeing his hair.

Just in case you had forgotten Mandelson was gay. Something Littlejohn hasn't mentioned since 15 September.

The 'stuck record' effect also occurs when he refers to Gordon Brown who, he says:

flogged off our gold at car-boot sale prices a few years ago

Hmm - does that phrase sound familiar? Because back in June, he wrote an imaginary interview where Brown was asked:

Do you regret selling Britain's gold reserves at car-boot sale prices?

And then in March about how:

Gordon Brown would be convicted of criminal negligence for selling off Britain's gold reserves at car-boot-sale prices.

In February, he changed it slightly, to:

sold off Britain's precious gold reserves at the bottom of the market.

And in November 2008 Brown was:

wanted in connection with the disappearance of billions of pounds' worth of Britain's gold bullion

At the end of September 2008, he wrote about:

Gordon Brown, who sold off Britain's gold reserves for brass washers, costing us billions

That was just a few weeks after he mentioned - and stop me if you've heard it - that Brown:

decided we didn't need our gold reserves any more and sold them off at car-boot sale prices.

And back in March 2008:

his decision to flog off our gold reserves at the bottom of the market.

So now we know Littlejohn does do recycling. In many more ways than putting bottles outside his house.