TV celebrity, Spectator editor and Tory MP Boris Johnson has been appointed to the opposition frontbench as an arts spokesman.

His appointment comes following a small Tory reshuffle in the wake of the resignation of Nick Hawkins from the frontbench.

Hawkins was recently deselected after a long-running feud with senior members of his local constituency association.

Meanwhile the Conservative Party will tonight attempt to use humour in its bid to undermine Labour.

A party political broadcast will show a policeman filling in forms as his office is burgled and a surgeon asking a nurse to pass him paperclips and a hole-punch.