Read: Carrie Symonds’s barking mad letter

It has been a ruff time in No. 10 for poor old Dilyn the dog. Adopted in September 2019, the Jack Russell-cross has been the subject of interminable briefing wars about his constant yapping, destructive tendencies and attempts to fornicate with his next door neighbour. But while not everyone in Downing Street is smitten with the sex-crazed mutt, Dilyn is fortunate in having an ardent champion in owner Carrie Symonds who clearly takes his welfare very seriously.

Just yesterday Mr S noted how a March 2020 story in the Times that suggested Dilyn might be rehomed had been unceremoniously purged from the newspaper’s website. Now it seems fresh light has been shed on the lengths Symonds was willing to go to defend her pooch, with the Daily Mail today printing a letter she drafted demanding a ‘suitable apology’ from the Times.

The 325 word letter – obtained by the remorseless Simon Walters – was drafted in the names of Symonds and Boris Johnson but was not sent after the latter reportedly objected on the grounds it was a ‘nonsense.’