BOLTON had its own "man in Havana" when MP Tom Sackville visited the Cuban capital.

This unlikely picture of the true-blue Conservative Home Office Minister shaking hands with Communist leader Fidel Castro was taken at the British Embassy in Cuba.

The Bolton West MP met the famous revolutionary before signing a joint deal to fight the South American drug barons. Castro has agreed to provide vital intelligence information on drug trafficking between Colombia and Europe in return for practical help with hi-tech customs methods.

Mr Sackville speaks fluent Spanish so he had no problem communicating with the Cuban leader despite the massive political divide between them.

He said: "Stopping the drugs trade totally transcends politics and I was there to sign an agreement which formalised an already good working relationship.

"Castro is a strong man with enormous force of personality and the way he has decided to go to war with the drugs trade is of great interest to us." Mr Sackville was only the third British Government Minister to visit the island in recent history.

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