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It was the sort of response that shows the other side holds all the cards. "Unacceptable," said the Foreign Secretary of the Iranian government's arrest over the weekend of up to nine locally hired Iranian staff working at the British embassy in Tehran.
Five of the group have been released, though the Iranian foreign ministry says that three are "still being interrogated".
The Iranian government's allegation that the nine embassy staff had been involved in whipping up the opposition forces that had taken to the streets to protest at what they regard as the theft of the election was "wholly without foundation", said David Miliband, who added that he was "deeply concerned".
So much is no doubt true, but what does the Foreign Secretary do now? As both sides know perfectly well, this diplomatic standoff is just another chapter in the fraught relationship between London and Tehran.
Iran may never have been formally part of the Empire but for 150 years, the British effectively ruled Persia, intervening when London found its chosen rulers somehow to be unacceptable.
"If you trip over a stone," goes an old Persian proverb, "be sure an Englishman left it there." Tehran seized upon that historic suspicion this week when it singled out Britain, the wily fox, rather than America, the Great Satan, as the prime instigator of the mayhem on the streets of the Iranian capital.
Reflecting the historical relationship, Britain has by far the grandest diplomatic mission in Tehran: the rolling, tree-filled acres of the compound stick out in an overcrowded, high-rise city.
The embassy and the ambassador's residence, dating back to the 19th century, are conspicuous symbols of Britain's past dominance of the Middle East, and have now become an obvious target for regime loyalists to make a point. A lion sits astride one column on the perimeter wall, a unicorn upon another. No wonder workmen were seen doing last minute improvements to the security systems.
"This is not a good time to be British in Iran," as one diplomatic official puts it, though the much-feared mass rally outside the embassy last week turned out to be a fairly tepid affair, with a few eggs lobbed at the shuttered windows.
This week things could get more uncomfortable. Americans do not need to be reminded that what looks at first like a low-level, rent-a-mob protest outside an embassy in Tehran can quickly deteriorate into a disastrous hostage crisis.
A certain tension, reflecting just a little part of the trauma and bloodshed on the streets in Tehran, can be felt outside the London embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, just a 10minute stroll from Harvey Nichols.
The building itself is scorched into Londoners' memories as the scene of the SAS's most public triumph - the clinical, indeed brutal, ending of the 1980 siege by Arab separatists opposed to the Tehran government who invaded Prince's Gate.
The gunmen thought they would be given safe passage out of the UK after making their point but they hadn't reckoned on Mrs Thatcher's robust attitude to terrorism.
On that occasion, Britain, the wily fox, or the minor Satan, lifted the siege and drove the terrorists out of Iranian sovereign territory, but there is no thanks now from Tehran.
Since the beatings and shootings started in Iran in response to the "stolen" election, Iranian exiles in London have been doing their bit to show solidarity with those back home. Each evening, they muster outside the embassy at around 6pm, a time set to accommodate these well educated, highly motivated people on their way home from work .
The early arrivals put up posters of Neda Agha Sultan, the beautiful, martyred face of resistance, and they light candles under pictures of her. Along the railings of Hyde Park are fixed photographs of other protestors shot down on the streets of Iranian cities by the Revolutionary Guard. Some of the grainy images taken on mobile phones are so gruesome that they could not even be put on YouTube.
Here, on the absurdly affluent streets of west London, you can witness if not a clash of civilisations, then an intriguing stand-off between Iran's gilded global elite and an obscurantist fanatical regime, with that regime's London representatives hunkered down in its multi-million pound diplomatic headquarters.
The agents of that regime penned down inside 16 Prince's Gate have nothing to say, and nothing to do, other than to hide on the roof of their imposing building, video the protesters and send back the images to Tehran for future use.
Prince's Gate is a fine diplomatic address, but the mission no longer functions in the manner for which it was created. The sadness is that until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005, the Iranian ambassador Hossein Adeli was a gregarious fixture on the diplomatic circuit, who would speak on the Today programme, visit newspaper officers and smooth over ructions between London and Tehran.
Shortly after Ahmadinejad's electoral victory, Hossein Adeli was recalled and replaced with His Excellency Rasoul Movahedian Attar, who the Foreign Office have found largely useless in their dealings.
He is regarded in Whitehall as the dullest regime hack, who is unable to smooth things over because he is so absolutely in thrall to Tehran.
When summoned to the Foreign Office for ritual dressing downs, he takes his punishment but seems unable to offer any solutions.
Nor does he speak to the wider British public at this time of crisis in his homeland, possibly because, it is said, he has yet to master English three years into his tour. It is no surprise, therefore, that the embassy's annual party has become one of the coldest tickets on the diplomatic circuit, and not just because only tepid soft drinks are served.
Phone calls and emails to the embassy staff have gone unanswered since the crisis in Iran flared, and queries have been referred to a government website in Tehran.
Motorists driving past Prince's Gate slow down and hoot to show their support to the Iranians denouncing their government at home. As diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran go into a deep chill, relations on the street between Londoners and Iranians grow warmer.
Reader views (5)
Why don't Iranians trust the Brits? You need to study the history of the last 200 years a bit!
Does oil ring a bell?
Does giving half of Iran to India and USSR ring a bell? Did you know that the Brits called the Persian Gulf “The British Gulf” over a century ago? And do you know what they call it toddy? “The Gulf”! As if it is the only Gulf in the world!
- Kiumars, London
Barton, my recommendation is that you go and live in Iran, as it is clear that you hate living in the West. The subjugation of women, hanging of homosexuals, the total lack of political freedoms is obviously right up your street.
- Stephen Rothbart, Prague Czech Republic
"Heh heh. Don't attack the great Satan - is too strong. Choose weakling country. Who? Ah yes. British. Their Foreign Minister is schoolboy. Say they evil and treacherous and racist. Go, Ahmed."
- John Problem, Hackney UK
Barton - what a typical idiotic knee-jerk leftie reaction.
So, I presume that you side with the er, 'sovereign state' of the Islamic Republic, which hangs teenagers for being gay and sponsors terrorism in Iraq and Lebanon, against its citizens, who are in fact heartily sick of their rulers?
Just because someone is against you favourite enemies - the UK and the US - does not make it a good idea to side with them. Iran's claims against the UK reflect its desperation to deny that this nasty regime's time is up by pinning it on outsiders.
Barton, your comments are moronic.
- Rowland, London
Knee jerk reactions guaranteed from those people who don't appreciate that a sovereign country has been covertly attacked by US, Israel and the UK. The casualties are the effects of that. Research it, maybe start at 1953.
If you support Democracy then you must be against countries being covertly attacked, and as for vote rigging where were you when Dubya got in? And as for the UK, oh yeah, not elected.
- Barton, Manchester
