Ring, ring

Oh there were laughs aplenty in the office when this story came out. You can just imagine the look on the Foreign Office accountant's face when a diplomat's phone came back with a £500,000 bill.

There's a serious side to this; the civil service has form for losing technology. There's even the suggestion that the ground war in Gulf One was held back because a laptop was stolen that held battle plans.

While a diplomat making huge numbers of calls to phone sex lines is amusing, the thought of terrorists being able to trace his security contacts is not. In all likelihood there was no security leak but if there was, the price for this stupid loss will be paid in blood.