KGB agents tried and failed to recruit David Cameron when he was a young student, the Prime Minister told his Russian hosts yesterday.
um, okay ...
On a visit to Moscow, he joked that he apparently failed to pass the "interview" during the bizarre incident on a gap-year trip to the Black Sea coast in 1985.
When told of the incident, President Dmitry Medvedev said that Mr Cameron would have made a "very good KGB agent".
Mr Cameron described the apparent approach during a speech to students at the Moscow State university. "I first came to Russia as a student on my gap year between school and university in 1985," he said. "I took the Trans-Siberian railway from Nakhodka to Moscow and went on to the Black Sea coast.
"There, two Russians, speaking perfect English, turned up on a beach mostly used by foreigners."
He continued: "They took me out to lunch and dinner and asked me about life in England and what I thought about England."
A naive Mr Cameron apparently did not immediately realise what had happened at the resort of Yalta until returning to Britain. He is understood to have been travelling with a friend, Anthony Griffith. The Prime Minister said: "When I got back I told my tutor at university and he asked me whether it was an interview. If it was, it seems I didn't get the job."
The anecdote was met with an uncomfortable reaction among the Russian students in the auditorium.
But later, when asked about the incident, President Medvedev and other senior Russian figures laughed it off.
"David would have been a very good KGB agent, but in this case he would never have become a Prime Minister of the UK," the Russian President said at a press conference in the Kremlin.
Never would have happened, we didn't do it and you can't prove it.
There have long been rumours that Left-wing politicians, including the Labour prime minister Harold Wilson, were groomed by the KGB.
Those comrades principled leftists, spies? I'm shocked, shocked! Actually, it's quite possible they didn't realize it if they were being groomed.
However, it is unusual for a Right-wing politician to admit any links to the Soviets.
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Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/13/2011 12:17 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Barry was wholly owned by the CIA. So was his mother and his maternal grandfather. On top of H.W. Bush and Clinton, who was deeply suspected of playing footsie with CIA, it's about time to send CIA a message to cool it with former personnel trying to become POTUS.
Yes, lots of generals have become POTUS, and there is nothing wrong with an ex-CIA type becoming POTUS, but not this many, this fast. They need to ease up and let civilians run things again for a while.
A police chief who declared a "total war" on crime has vowed to restore faith in the crisis-hit Metropolitan Police after being given the job of running Britain's biggest force. Bernard Hogan-Howe, who has in the past railed against health and safety rules and soft sentencing, was yesterday appointed as the new commissioner at Scotland Yard.
The 53-year-old's appointment ends a two-month search to replace Sir Paul Stephenson who resigned during the phone hacking scandal in July.
Mr Hogan-Howe immediately signalled his hard line intent, saying he wanted to make the Metropolitan Police a force that criminals "fear" and the public "trust".
His first task will be to restore faith in the country's biggest force which is still reeling from criticism over its handling of the phone hacking investigation and the riots.
The Yorkshireman was selected ahead of three senior rivals who applied for the Scotland Yard job.
Mr Hogan-Howe is no stranger to the Metropolitan Police, having worked as an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard under Sir John Stevens between 2001 and 2004.
But he made his name as chief constable of Merseyside Police where he introduced "total policing", describing it as a "total war on suspects and total victim care." While head of that force between 2004 and 2009 he cut crime by 30 per cent and anti social behaviour by a quarter. Crimes solved nearly doubled during his tenure.
He championed the rights of victims, suggesting that every victim of crime, no matter how minor, should be visited by a police officer.
Does he believe that crime victims have a right to defend themselves? With firearms if necessary?
Or at least with a poker in the parlour?
He was one of the first police officers to link the youth crime rate to the low cost of alcohol. And he called for a zero tolerance approach to knife crime, saying that anyone caught with a blade should expect a prison sentence.
The issues have all since become key priorities for the current Government and his success fits the Home Secretary's desire for a "single minded crime fighter" to lead the country's biggest force
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#4
As far as POWs are concerned, I am not mellowing with age. In fact, I want smaller, less noticeable, and deadlier.
That is, if somebody bugs me enough to have to use a weapon, I want them to die. 300mg of liquid nicotine in an autoinjector with a 3" needle could off a cow, yet look like an ordinary wide writing pen.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
