MI6

"So MI6 don't operate a lot in the rain," Lowden - who has been touted as a possibility for the new James Bond - said.

Taylor-Johnson is among a handful of stars speculated to become the newest heartthrob MI6 agent with a license to kill.

Gordievsky, a colonel in Russia's KGB, spent many years as a double agent, passing vital intelligence to both Britain's MI6 and MI5.

After teaching at Eton for two years, he joined the Foreign Office and also worked at MI5 and MI6.

The online rumour mill had identified the attacker as a Muslim asylum seeker who had been on an MI6 watch list.