Cameron may have been caught out by pranksters – but he has the last laugh

The foreign secretary fell for a fake Russian call – but even when talking about Ukraine and his recent dinner with Donald Trump, he didn’t give away any state secrets, and equipped himself better than other politicians to whom the same thing has happened, says Sean O’Grady

During a hoax video call, David Cameron told Russian pranksters that a Labour government would be just as 'enthusiastic' in its support for Ukraine as the Tories (Vovan and Lexus (screenshot))

It says a lot for the Conservatives’ election campaign that the best thing that has happened to them since Rishi Sunak did his impression of a drowned rat is that the foreign secretary got scammed by some Russian pranksters.

The hoax call was made by a celebrated double act who go by the names of Vovan and Lexus, Moscow’s answer to Ant and Dec. They somehow got hold of David Cameron’s mobile number and, penetrating Britain’s predictably lax security protocols, got through to him and, using a highly convincing “deepfake” filter, pretended to be the former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. Cameron then chatted away about Putin, Trump and Macron, mostly about the war in Ukraine.

The bad news is that Cameron got duped by a pair of amateurs who always give the impression that they wouldn’t mind too much if their victims (Cameron is hardly the first) gave away intelligence of value to the Kremlin. It’s not the first time he’s been hoax-called, either.