Hot of the heels of two of their senior ministers openly advocating the use of tactical voting, reports that the Labour Party's National Executive Committee has ordered all 631 of its candidates to change their first names, by Deed Poll, to "Xavier", has led to renewed claims in the press that Labour are, "resorting to increasingly desperate measures".
These claims however have been strenuously denied by Labour's Deputy Leader, who today branded such reports as, "utter rubbish". Speaking outside of her constituency office this morning, Ms. Xavier Harman said: "you only have to look at the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Xanthe Darling, to see that this whole, everyone's now called 'Xavier' thing, is patently untrue".
When asked if Mr. Brown had also responded to the NEC's call, Ms. Harman replied: "Mr. who?" Before adding: "oh, you must mean the Prime Minister, Mr. Noneoftheabove. Yes, the whole strategy was Mr. Xena Warrior Princess Noneoftheabove's idea actually."