One is a former MI6 spy whose claims that Donald Trump was compromised by Russian intelligence sparked an international crisis and led to the first calls to impeach the American president. The other is one of Britain’s leading spy writers, a man who has had privileged access to the secret world for nearly 40 years.

Once they were friends. Today Nigel West — the pen name of the former Tory MP Rupert Allason — accuses Christopher Steele of fabricating a report that alleged Vladimir Putin’s security services had “kompromat” footage of Russian prostitutes urinating in front of Trump on a bed at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow during the 2013 Miss Universe contest.

West says he was commissioned by a Republican law firm in Washington