Coach into pumpkin: some problems with Paget

Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] (Northern Ireland) Report that the term “agents” is used to refer to informants or sources and not “agents” as it is sometimes colloquially understood to be, “ MI6 spies”. Thus the reference to “agents being involved in murder” was a reference to actions of informants rather than the authorities.’ Paget concludes with the cosmically […]

Who Owns Agca? Plots to Kill the Pope

Lobster Issue 4 (1984)

[…] with the cooperation/protection of the Bulgarian state. It is an unexceptional picture. Intelligence services all over the world are plugged into the drugs/guns business. Even our own MI6 tried it, as the Howard Marks story revealed some time ago. (3) That the Bulgarians should be so engaged should surprise only the innocent, and shock […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] spooks’ pay-day for all the career-building info’ they had slipped him in the previous decade, he writes: ‘I am certain that those to whom I spoke at MI6 acted then in good faith. I remember one particular conversation I had with an official in the early summer of 2003, not long before Andrew Gilligan’s […]

Wallace on Pincher on Wallace

Lobster Issue 21 (1991)

[…] but, despite the usual shower of interesting fragments, mostly it is junk. Pincher’s primary strategy is clear enough. During the mid 1970s bureaucratic wars between MI5 and MI6, Maurice Oldfield, Chief of MI6, used Pincher to denigrate MI5, notably via a couple of stories supporting Harold Wilson’s claims that he was the victim of […]

Miscellaneous: Gemstone. Workers’ Revolutionary Party, MI5 and Libya

Lobster Issue 20 (1990)

[…] to disguise operations. Brierley retains his connections through his Charter Corp’s holding in Teltherm. Keston College In Lobster 19 we referred to Keston College as a probable MI6 operation. One of our readers had the wit to send our reference to Keston to the BBC, asking for comments. The editor of the Radio 4 […]

Fifth Column: A brief sojourn East of Suez: a last gasp for British great power status

Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] into play some awkward facts. The UK’s largest Muslim minority is from Pakistan. Western engagement against Islamism in Western Asia would naturally create conflicts of loyalty. While MI6 might enjoy itself understanding the intricacies of Pathan tribal politics, it was MI5 that was going to have to pick up the pieces. As we move […]

Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State

Lobster Issue 27 (1994)

[…] of bureaucratic and organisational models of the modern state, concluding that inter-agency rivalry is to be expected — or you can have an overview of the MI5/ MI6 turf wars. You can’t, yet, have both. Which is not to say this book is ‘Parapolitics for Beginners (with sociology degrees)’. Some of Gill’s academic digressions […]

Your Right To Know: How to use the Freedom of Information Act and other access laws

Book cover
Lobster Issue 49 (Summer 2005)

[…] an absolute exemption for information that was supplied directly or indirectly, or relates to the following security bodies: the Security Service (MI5), the Secret Intelligence Service ( MI6), GCHQ, Special Forces …the National Criminal Intelligence Service…a certificate from a minister is all that is needed for the exemption to apply…….The security services in the […]

Confessions of a Crawler

Lobster Issue 42 (Winter 2001/2)

[…] (Mason had threatened Ashdown with a knife in Yeovil in November 1995 and apparently alleged the quarrel was over a massage parlour). Ashdown, a former SBS and MI6 officer, described the episode as ‘absolutely horrifying’: The Ashdown Diaries, Vol. 1, (London 2000): pp. 279, 380, 392. 4 Peter Goodwin, Television Under the Tories, (London […]

Spooks – U.K.

Lobster Issue 1 (1983)

[…] Face M.P.’s Questions. (Peter Hennessy T. April 21 1983) The new Select Committees attempted to monitor the intelligence services and question the criteria for classification of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ documents. John Biffen, Leader of the House of Commons, said: “It is by no means clear that the intelligence services should come within the […]

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