The unspeakable Martin Kettle of The Guardian is a political journalist who has been pretty close to, and supportive of, New Labour since the 1990s. His article ‘The special relationship that squandered a noble cause’ (27 May 2006) opened with this: ‘The long arc of Tony Blair’s rise and decline has been punctuated by journeys […]
[…] series – he comments on the hypocrisy of his persecution while the former SIS officer with the pseudonym Alan Judd, gets access to the diary of early MI6 chief Mansfield Cummings: ‘I know Alan Judd’s real name, but I can’t reveal it. He formerly worked in the secretariat or, in normal language, the MI6 […]
[…] he worked were “genuinely honest men trying to do the best job in the circumstances. They were in a no-win situation.” When he was recruited as an MI6 officer, he said of them that they were not disagreeable; their ethics were reasonable; they were seeking a political solution. His complaint, which eventually led to […]
[…] information, especially Jane Affleck and Robert Henderson for the continuous stream of articles; and to Phil Chamberlain who spotted Norman Baker’s House of Commons adjournment debate on MI6. The content of a number of the articles and reviews in this issue may seem to overlap or to be related. I could claim that this […]
Efraim Karsh Yale University Press, 2006; 276 pp. For anyone who believes that ‘imperialism’ is an exclusively Western phenomenon, that Islam has only been the victim of it, and that 9/11 was simply a reaction to that (‘blowback’), this book will come as a bit of a shock. Karsh argues that aggressive imperialism was […]
[…] Probably not, even in the best of circumstances; certainly not when the document in question happened to be lying about in an unguarded room in Baghdad. Would MI6 think it worthwhile fabricating such a document to nail Galloway? Of course. However we regard Galloway there is no doubt that the Telegraph has been used […]
The British American Project and the war on Iraq The war on Iraq proved a busy time for members of the British American Project (Lobster 33 et seq) on this side of the pond. To cover the American countdown to war, long-time UK advisory board member Jim Naughtie returned to the New York home of […]
[…] intended to ask four MI5 witnesses, screened from the public and press. The jury were therefore unable to be told about important allegations including the involvement of MI6 in a plot to assassinate General Gadaffi; that MI5 had prior knowledge of a plan to bomb the Israeli Embassy in London in 1994 (information that […]
[…] stage, with much more powerful economies, who have only small or nonexistent external intelligence gathering operations. Japan or Germany, for example. Could the money Britain spends on MI6 not be spent better elsewhere, on health care or education?’ A flicker of a smile crossed McColl’s lips. “Ah, young man, you overlook the fact that […]
[…] political, as well as ministerial, agenda. At the time of his visit, the former British colony was wracked by covert operations being mounted by the CIA and MI6. By way of background, the most important political group in the country was the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), established by Dr. Cheddi Jagan during the 1940s. […]
