Mike Theodoulou: Hatred of 'Little Satan' has roots in days of Empire

An Iranian newspaper once quipped that to join the Foreign and Commonwealth Office you had to be an "incorrigible bugger".

British diplomats, in other words, are all spies - and gay.

It was a rare flash of albeit politically incorrect wit in the insults Iran has hurled at Britain over the years. Plainer language is the norm.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last summer accused the "evil British government" of stirring up the huge anti-government street demonstrations that convulsed Tehran in the wake of president Ahmadinejad's fiercely disputed re-election.

And another hardline cleric close to Ahmadinejad - Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati - once declared: "The British are the worst conmen, the most devious people and they are foxier than everyone else."

"Perfidious Albion" has a special place in Iran's colourful lexicon of political demonology and has long been a convenient scapegoat for the Iranian regime when things go wrong at home.

The "colonial old fox" has been denounced as perverted and duplicitous but rarely, if ever, been called thick.

On the contrary, the "Little Satan" is regarded as more Machiavellian than the dim-witted "Great Satan" America.

According to an old Iranian proverb, if you trip over a pebble, you can be sure it was put there by a Brit.

Britons, surprised by deeply held Iranian suspicions of their country, usually have little idea of its historical roots in British imperial meddling in Iran in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The defining moment was in 1953, when British intelligence joined with the CIA in a coup that overthrew Iran's popular, elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, and re-installed the unpopular Shah.

Mossadegh's sin, in Anglo-American eyes, was to have nationalised the Anglo-Iranian oil company, which had previously paid huge taxes to Britain. To those few Britons who know of the coup, the episode might seem like ancient history - but it remains very current to most Iranians who view Britain as a great power with global reach.

Such flattering perceptions of Britain's power are little consolation to its diplomats hunkered down in their fortified embassy in Tehran, which has been a focus of sometimes violent anti-Western demonstrations.