The Foreign Office says it is fed up with "silly jokes" about "from Russia with love". The official line is that there are far too many real problems in places like Iran and Afghanistan to spend time worrying about a junior diplomat being indiscreet in the Urals.
Yesterday, a four-minute video surfaced featuring year-old British diplomat James Hudson, entitled "Adventures of Mr Hudson in Russia". It shows the deputy consul general in Ekaterinburg cavorting with two prostitutes.
He has since resigned. A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office FCO said: "The FCO expects all its staff to demonstrate high levels of personal and professional integrity and takes all allegations of inappropriate behaviour seriously. But, her colleagues confirmed that Mr Hudson was indeed the man in the film, seen entering a room β reportedly a brothel β drinking on a sofa, and kissing two blonde women in their underwear. In one scene a female voice asks in broken English: "Would you like it?
Last weekend, it emerged that the holiday snaps of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, taken by his wife, were freely available for the public to view on Facebook. Thanks to comments by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, he is in danger of being known forever as "the spy in Speedos". But the case of Mr Hudson is a bit more serious.
It has been suggested that the diplomat might have been lured into a "honey trap" by the Russian intelligence service FSB, the successor to the KGB, with the aim of embarrassing the British Government.
