Why politicians who kiss animals should let sleeping dogs lie...

When an MP chooses to promote himself by posing for the media while kissing a dog, he should expect a bit of ribbing...

But Andrew Rosindell, Tory MP for Romford, clearly failed see the pitfalls of dressing up his Staffordshire bull-terrier in a Union Flag costume, and demonstrating his clever trick with a chocolate biscuit...

(For the avoidance of doubt, that's Buster-the-Staffie who's clearly the clever one.)

One of the leading political bloggers, Guido Fawkes thought the resulting snap was amusing and decided to publish it as a caption contest under the headline: Man's Best Friend...

Guido's post attracted 85 entries from his readers, almost all posted within a few hours. Predictably, and of course tongue-in-cheek, some focused on the close relationship between the MP and his mutt.

That was on 24th April, 2007. That's right. The 24th of April.2007.

Everything went quiet for over a year and would no doubt have remained so, were it not for Mr Rosindell's actions. Last week, 15 months after Guido's original post, the MP seemingly stumbled across the long-forgotten caption competition while surfing in the early hours.

He had an immediate sense of humour failure and fired off an email to Guido demanding removal of the more offensive comments.

Not surprisingly, instead, Guido promptly posted the MP's demands in full together with his reply, telling him that if he will

go round kissing dogs for publicity photos, people are entitled to laugh and make jokes.

Guido's new post attracted 147 comments, rather more than the original posting that most people had forgotten. It also attracted the attention of Mr Rosindell's local paper the Romford Recorder.

The Recorder suggests that MP perhaps should have 'let sleeping dogs lie'...and highlights the fact that some of the postings refer to 'romantic insinuations about Mr Rosindell and his dog, as well as negative suggestions about his political capabilities...'

As the Recorder dutifully points out, Guido says no-one is suggesting that the MP and his dog are lovers...!!

Mr Rosindell's explanation of the photo is that he was doing what the media asked.

He's not the first politician to to be held up to ridicule for failing to see how an apparently innocent pose might be mischievously interpreted.

But resurrecting a long-forgotten piss-take from well over a year ago surely confirms an appalling lack of judgement.

Until he went barking to Guido, most of his constituents in Romford would have remained blissfully unaware of how daft he'd been with Buster and the chocolate biscuit.

After such a self-inflicted shot-in-the-foot, he needs to brace himself for a whole lot more 'fun' at his expense.

For example: Determined to have the last word - and laugh - Guido has now responded to the Romford Recorder coverage with a new photo of Rosindell, this time with a goat, suitably captioned:

Tory MP intimately embracing Nanny

So far this latest salvo has attracted 185 comments.

Your move Mr Rosindell...