The recent State visit of Chinese President, Hu Jintao, was marred for staff at Buckingham Palace by the suspicions of the delegation.

Every time staff were summoned to the President’s suite, where the furniture had been completely rearranged, they had to remove their artificial poppies ~ worn in Britain in the runup to Armistice Day on November 11.

A Palace source told the Daily Mail : “Apparently the Chinese were convinced the poppies were bugs.”