At a joint press conference with Tony Blair at Downing Street yesterday, Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, peered around the room at a sea of reporters and cameras. He did not see what he was looking for, which was a large black moustache.

“Maybe Mr Borat is here representing Kazakhstan,” the Russian-speaking President said through an interpreter. “I’d very much like to speak to him if he is.”

Mr Borat, otherwise known as Sacha Baron Cohen, the English Jewish comic actor, had the good sense to be nowhere near No 10. He was 6,000 miles away, in Los Angeles, promoting his hit film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, in which he plays an embarrassingly inept television reporter from the Central Asian state and former Soviet republic.

Indeed, there was no one in the room with a big black moustache. The real-life Kazakhstan TV correspondent was a rather glamorous and self-possessed woman, who asked Mr Blair one of those soft questions that are tailor-made for consumption back home: how important did he think the President’s visit to Britain was? Borat, by contrast, would probably have asked him whether he still found Cherie exciting, and then released a live chicken into the room.

Inevitably, at a press conference intended to emphasise bilateral relations, alternative energy supplies and the fact that 128 British companies were investing in Kazakhstan, the first question of the press conference was about the film.

Mr Nazarbayev, round-faced, clean-shaven and dressed in a sober blue suit with bright blue silk tie, chose to come out fighting. “The film was created by a comedian, so let’s laugh at it,” he said.

But, he noted sharply, Mr Borat had never been to Kazakhstan; the film had been made “in an impoverished part of Romania”, using local gypsies to play Kazakhs and an American student to play a particularly drunken one. Mr Nazarbayev noted that some of those who had appeared in the film were now taking Baron Cohen to court.

“There is a saying that any publicity is good publicity,” the President said. “By asking this question you already want to know more about Kazakhstan, and I invite you to visit.”

His words are more than just wishful thinking. The accommodation-finding website Hotels.com yesterday reported a 300 per cent increase in internet searches for Kazakhstan hotels since the release of the film. Would-be tourists may not yet have read the Lonely Planet guide, which warns of vast semi-arid steppes and decaying industrial towns.

Mr Nazarbayev, who is regarded by many back home as an undemocratic tyrant, wallowed in yesterday’s praise from the Prime Minister, who paid tribute to his leadership and how he had transformed his country’s economy “in a truly remarkable way”.

Well, they do have a detachment with the coalition in Iraq, and their oil and gas reserves are enormous.

What Mr Blair did not mention was that Mr Nazarbayev has been President since 1991, was re-elected for a further seven years last year with 90 per cent of the vote in an election which Western observers said was rigged, and has steered through legislation that gives him full powers for life, even after he has retired. He described democracy as “a long-term goal” for his country.

In Kazakhstan the personal life and affairs of President Nazarbayev are classified as a state secret. At considerable personal risk, The Times can disclose that he is 66.

The President began his official visit to Britain with a 20-minute audience in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace, shoehorned into a busy morning for the Queen.

According to Palace officials, 20 minutes is standard time for a foreign president not on a full state visit.

If Baron Cohen ever receives an honour for services to taking the rise out of a landlocked Central Asian republic, he will be lucky to get 30 seconds of the monarch’s time.

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