‘It was good while it lasted…’ So says Tony Badger, who, for the last ten years, has been the UK’s top Tony Blair lookalike. ‘I guess I was born with a golden face,’ smiles the 53 year old steam train enthusiast and part-time lingerie model from Kent. ‘Only I’ve had to make it more golden over the years to keep pace with Tony’s tan. That’s been the most difficult part of the job. From one week to the next, we never knew what colour he’d be. One day he’d be a Bermudan beige and the next a shade of Moroccan coffee.’

But now unemployment beckons for Badger, who, like many of his colleagues in the political lookalike business, will retire or seek out normal work. Badger admits it’s a difficult time. ‘I’d like to land a directorship in the city or do a lecture tour of America,’ he jokes. ‘But in all honesty, it’s probably back to working in the biscuit factory with the odd bit of work modelling baby-doll nighties in the evening.’ Asked if he’s enjoyed his notoriety, Badger ruefully admits that there have been times when he’s enjoyed the job more than others. ‘Before Iraq, people loved me. I’d have women throwing themselves at me among the vegetables in the local Tesco. Now, they throw tomatoes and not normal tomatoes. Tesco Value tomatoes. The whole thing has become a horrible soggy mess.’

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Unknown Icelandic striker Snoogy Doogy has become the latest target for some of Europe’s biggest clubs after Liverpool’s co-owner George Gillett unwittingly revealed the identity of Rafa Benitez’s main hope of goals for the next Premiership season.

This morning’s Daily Telegraph revealed how Gillett admitted that ‘If Rafa said he wanted to buy Snoogy Doogy, we would back him.’ Both Newcastle and Chelsea are now expected to launch a counter bid for the striker, whose price has risen to over £50 million, a price now though to be too rich even for Liverpool’s new American owners.

‘Snoogy Doogy has been one of my targets for many years,’ said José Mourinho, ‘but you don’t hear me talking about him because to me he is special. I think he will be perfect partner to Drogba next season.’ It is thought that Andriy Shevchenko might be included in any deal, with the out-of-favour Ukrainian striker moving to play for Krafla FC, which currently sits at the bottom of Iceland’s third division.

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His neighbours may think of him as something of an oddball but when squatter Tobias Blair won the deeds to his home in central London, this unassuming man also became one of the richest landowners in the area. The plot of land in Westminster is worth millions but became his after proving that he’d been living there for over ten years.

‘The fact that he’s made a mess of the place doesn’t mean a thing,’ said a neighbour of Blair’s who asked to remain anonymous. ‘Ach! I’ve got a right to that place but he’s been promising to vacate it for as long as I’ve been here.’

Blair himself was in an uncompromising mood. ‘Look guys,’ he said, ‘it’s great to learn that I’m staying put but if you don’t get of my land, pretty sharpish, I’ll set the dog on you.’