A Conservative MP has blamed jobless "scroungers" after finding a dead badger dumped on his doorstep.
Ian Liddell-Grainger, who has supported the badger cull, said the animal appeared to have been beaten to death.
The Bridgwater MP said he had decided not to report the death to a local animal charity because he feared they would try to frame him as its killer.
In an outspoken blog for the Western Morning News, he wrote: "A rather unusual delivery was made to me last weekend – a youngish specimen of a badger.
"One which, sadly, had passed on. Gone to meet its maker. An ex-badger. And there it was lying on my doorstep."
Liddell-Grainger said he had been surprised at how early the "thoughtful gift" had been delivered.
"And that's puzzling because, while it was clearly a gesture by the Pro-badger Tendency, I thought most of them were in the habit of lying in bed until the pubs open, or until the postman arrives with the benefit cheque (or do such things get paid straight into their accounts these days?)
"Either way, since they are all malingerers and scroungers there is no real incentive to leap out of bed as soon as the dawn chorus strikes up."