At 10:30 this morning the Intelligence and Security Committee will publish its long awaited report on the Russian threat to the UK – over a year since it was put together. This morning there is wide speculation that, much to the disappointment of Remainer conspiracy theorists, there is deeper evidence that the Kremlin attempted to interfere in Scottish independence vote than the EU referendum. Brace yourself for the SNP suddenly not liking this report so much after all…

One theme that will certainly make the Tories queasy is not so much the idea that Russia had any meaningful success in ‘hacking’ elections but rather the extent to which the oligarch network is used by the Russian state for intelligence gathering. Bill Browder, the Head of the global Magnitsky Justice campaign, spoke to the Today Programme about the evidence he gave to the ISC…

“Oligarchs would come to the UK, spend their money on members of the establishment on highly placed people who would basically do intelligence work and influence work on behalf of the Russian government.”

Perhaps thankfully for the Tory Party at least Browder’s evidence did not focus on political party donations. Although he did make specific reference to payments to Labour and Conservative members of the House of Lords…