Back in 1993 or thereabouts, soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, there was the first wave of excitement about Newly Rich Russians steaming in to the London property market, driving house prices up.

This caused interest among the UK security services who ran some discreet enquiries among estate agents to see what was going on.

It transpired that they could not find a single example of any Rich Russian buying anything – but everyone was talking about it, to fluff up the market.

At a meeting at the FCO to discuss this and other practical aspects of the collpase of the Soviet Union, I warned the senior police officers present to expect a wave of firearms from that part of the world to come to UK. There were far too many weapons in the former communist world now effectively out of control, and far too many people keen to sell them.

I recall that they looked at me with a look of patronising disbelief. Did not this cutesy diplomat know that firearms were very rare in the UK – and going to stay that way?

Ho hum.

I was right, as usual:

By March this year, British police forces had recovered more than 250 Baikals. Even so, most police officers concede that, as with drug seizures, this probably represents just a fraction of those in the country. The uncomfortable truth is that no one knows how many Baikals are in criminal hands…