Actually, a few months back a pair of Tornado F.3s were also dispatched to intercept a Bear, probably Tu-142. But at that time it was monitoring a NATO naval exercise.
So this might be totally unrelated to the Litvinenko stuff.
Bear intercepts, diplomatic/spy wars, argueing over missiles in Europe, healthy MiG order book, and messing about in Afghanistan, it does all sound like the Cold War days. Only back then arms treaties were mostly signed, not torn up...
With Putin and Bush, I'm not surprised we're heading this way.
Bay of Pigs...well, could be, let's see how the US wants to handle Chavez.