Friendly banter or double-bluff?

ith a new version of the John le Carré masterpiece Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy about to grace our cinema screens, there is renewed interest in espionage, something which will heightened by the David Cameron’s disclosure that the KGB tried to recruit him to work for them.

Mr Cameron’s revelation, made during a visit to Moscow, prompted Russian president Dmitri Medvedev to say he was sure the Prime Minister would have made a very good spy, though he politely suggested MI5 would have eventually found him out.

But with le Carré in mind, Mr Cameron’s confession and Mr Medvedev’s response raise a number of intriguing questions. Might the two be engaged in a kind of le Carré-esque double bluff? Perhaps the Prime Minister is a Russian “sleeper” who has made it to the top of the United Kingdom’s political machine?

And could it be that the latest drug allegations involving Chancellor George Osborne are not to be sniffed at, but are part of a plot organised by the Russians to ensure he never challenges Mr Cameron, so their man remains in 10 Downing Street?

We need to be told. We need to find out whether there is another traitor at the heart of the British establishment. Sounds like a job for George Smiley.