As if the people of Iraq weren’t suffering enough under the burden of bull-headed sectarian violence, a precarious economy and a train of Western politicians parachuting into town with the goal of raising the morale of their local troops (using the phrase “raising the morale of their local troops” in its sense of “boosting their profile with their electorates watching them on TV news bulletins back at home”), they now have the giant badger of Basra with which to contend. Only the threat of a visit by the newly reformed Spice Girls might sink local Iraqi spirits further.

Like many other beasts whose dimensions swell with every reported (albeit undocumented) sighting, the Basra badger might owe more to dusty myth than to Charles Darwin; along with those pumas that are regularly sighted on Exmoor, the Beast of Bodmin, the yeti and – for all we know – six-foot-tall squirrels and savage swans the size of Seattle. And like those mysterious beasts, the giant badger of Basra has conveniently broken cover just in time for summer, a period when newspapers traditionally struggle to find meatier news with which to fill their pages.

In the heat of the Iraqi port city, rumours swirl that the badgers – reputedly bear-like monsters – have been introduced by British forces to sow panic in the region. Possibly this is prompted by Britain’s reputation for producing fabulous creatures. Take the famous Big Cat of Westminster which, sheathed in a red Lycra catsuit, has been spotted licking imaginary milk from the palm of the actress Rula Lenska, and which answers to the name of “George”. Or the newly sighted Brown Beastie, manifesting himself yesterday as a new mythical beast: half Prime Minister, half Queen.