Michael Heseltine: I strangled my mother’s dog

Oh dear. It seems Michael Heseltine ought to prepare for a visit from the RSPCA in the next week or so. The former Deputy Prime Minister has admitted to a crime, in an interview in this month’s Tatler.

The 83-year-old conservative makes the confession that he strangled his mother’s pet dog, by the name of Kim. The incident occurred after Kim, an Alsatian, started biting Heseltine when the politician attempted to stroke him:

‘I went to stroke him and he started biting me. If you have a dog that turns, you just cannot risk it. So I took Kim’s collar – a short of choker chain – and pulled it tight. Suddenly he went limp.’

Although Lord Heseltine insists he was devoted to Kim before the dog ‘obviously had some sort of mental breakdown’, Mr S suspects it’s for the best if he gives next year’s Westminster Dog of the Year a miss.

Update: Heseltine has now spoken out to insist that while he did strangle the dog for a short period, he did not kill it.