The poor saps at parliament’s press office will want poplar Telegraph hack Chris “Chopper” Hope arrested for high tree-son after he branched out from his normal coverage and lumbered them with a series of questions that left them stumped. Hope got to the root of the issue when he o-pined on Twitter that a shady lady on a ladder was pulling the leaves off trees on the parliamentary estate. A ash-en faced spokesman insisted he was barking up the wrong tree:

“The leaves are removed each winter as a more time-efficient alternative to raking fallen leaves. The House of Commons employs a gardening service which covers maintenance of more than 145 trees on the Parliamentary estate as well as all grassed areas, planted areas, indoor plants, containers and window boxes. It is not possible to separate the cost of removing leaves from the trees in New Palace Yard from the wider cost of the gardening contract the leaves are removed each winter as a more time-efficient alternative to raking fallen leaves.”

You’d have thought they would have saw this one coming. Guido is becoming increasingly sycamore and more of these flagrant examples of government waste. The real question is how much the taxpayer willow. Facepalm…