Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said the United Arab Emirates was suspected of orchestrating spyware attacks on No 10 in 2020 and 2021.

Pegasus is the hacking software -- or spyware -- developed, marketed and licensed to governments around the world by the Israeli firm NSO Group. It has the capability to infect mobile phones, meaning that the Arabs could tell who was bonking whom in number ten, when the next illegal party was, and were better informed about the names of Boris’s kids than Boris.

Citizen Lab added there had also been suspected attacks on the Foreign Office over the same two years that were also associated with Pegasus operators linked to the UAE -- as well as India, Cyprus and Jordan (the country, not the glamour model).

The researchers took the rare step of notifying Whitehall of the attack as it "believes that our actions can reduce harm." However, they were not able to identify the specific individuals within No 10 and the Foreign Office who are suspected of having been hacked.

"The suspected infections relating to the FCO were associated with Pegasus operators that we link to the UAE, India, Cyprus and Jordan. The suspected infection at the UK prime minister's office was associated with a Pegasus operator we link to the UAE."