Tony Blair, William Hague, John Culshaw and the threat of AI

But millions of other people did.

It was that comic moment, back in 1998, when an impressionist telephoned Downing Street pretending to be Hague, and asking to talk to the then-Prime Minister.

Astonishingly, he was put through.

It took a few seconds before Blair cottoned on, admitting that the hoaxer had initially fooled him.

Now Rotherham-born Hague (63) has brought the hoax call back to light in the present day, for what he deems are serious reasons.

He says the ability to replicate somebody else’s identity could be a dark spin-off of in the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI.)

He said the technology was now easily available to pretend to be somebody else.

And that could destabilise society, he said on a podcast for The Times.

The former Wath Comprehensive School pupil and one-time Conservative leader had stated that he loved innovation and was fascinated by technology.

He has studied the rise of AI for years, questioning whether it was good for jobs - or would kill them off...and potentially the world as we know it.

While AI was a "massive opportunity” for Britain to lead the world, he did question the mischievous ways it could be used.

"Let’s just think about a couple of the other challenges it brings and what we can do about that,” he said.

"One is deep fake misinformation.

“For my entire political life I have had people impersonating me, I’m one of the most easily impersonated people, by Rory Bremner, and lots of other people.

“I’ve always known there could be a fake.

"When Tony Blair was Prime Minister someone once got through to him in his bedroom pretending to be having got through the Downing Street switchboard saying: ‘I’m William Hague and I want to talk to Tony Blair’ and they got straight through.

"But now somebody with a few seconds recording of my voice or indeed anybody’s voice can produce a pretty convincing fake of that person. We just don’t know what to believe any more.”

Hague was referring to the time budding impressionist Jon Culshaw made the call to No 10.

Once the Labour PM recognised the subterfuge, he eventually took it in good spirits.

In the Commons, Blair revealed he’d been the subject of the wind-up, joking it had "made more sense” than anything William Hague had said that day in the Chamber!

Hague’s modern-day podcast Hague featured an interview AI expert Azeem Azhar and was entitled: "Unchecked power ends with bad outcomes”.

Culshaw (who is now aged now 55) perhaps wouldn’t identify with that sentiment - his career went through the roof after his Westminster prank.

In 2004 he played the part of Blair in the film Churchill: The Hollywood Years.

CULSHAW’S BEST IMPRESSIONS, POST HAGUEBoris Johnson, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Russell Crowe, Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael McIntyre, Dale Winton, Sir Patrick Moore, Tom Baker and Les Dawson.