An interesting piece by Mark Hollingsworth appeared in Punch of 23 May-5 June 2001, ‘Spooks in the House’, on intelligence and security personnel who become MPs. Some of the material was familiar but less well known were Raymond Fletcher, and Le Cercle. Fletcher was a Labour MP who was witch-hunted by MI5 as a […]
[…] counsel of the UK and other similarly-minded allies. This is the very essence of the liberal progressive ‘third way’ model which has been promoted by the British intelligence and security establishment and which was central to the decision to follow the US into Afghanistan and Iraq. This model made one big assumption that seemed […]
‘Britain, 2005. Saddam Hussein, still the ruler of Iraq and possessor of a long-range nuclear missile, seeks revenge on the west. Warned by intelligence reports of Saddam’s plan, the United States deploys a space-based missile shield, which will catch the Iraqi rocket before it gets to Washington. The key installation is based in Yorkshire […]
[…] aristocrats and eccentric M.Ps or forces which were much more powerfully rooted in the structure of the British State? What was their relationship with the security and intelligence services? Why did Churchill feel the need to have his own intelligence adviser, Sir Desmond Morton? Costello seems to believe that the pro-appeasement faction was powerful […]
[…] you where it is. Absolute exemptions are not subject to any public interest test, and include information supplied by, or concerning: the Security Service, MI5; the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6; GCHQ; the Special Forces, e.g. the SAS; tribunals concerning intelligence and interception of communications including the Investigatory Powers Tribunal; and the National Criminal Intelligence […]
[…] reason seems likely to be Stiff’s later career in the SAS, as an employee of David Stirling’s Watchguard International, and as a member of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation (CI0). Stiff reveals, among other things, his involvement in a campaign of bombing and assassination in Zambia and in an abortive conspiracy to assassinate Robert […]
The clandestine world of surveillance, spying and intelligence from ancient times to the post 9/11 world Ernest Volkman London: Carlton, 2007, h/b, £20 This is a lavishly and creatively illustrated, large format, (i.e. slightly bigger than A4) glossy paper, coffee-table book on the history of espionage. A former journalist with Newsday, and author […]
[…] work of Ernest Bevin, and the European Community is the work of Jean Monnet (with his faithful discipline Schuman) These are not just myths; they are, in intelligence parlance, more like ‘cover stories’. The Marshall Plan is named after the speech on June 5 1947 by US Secretary of State Marshall, which invited European […]
[…] Thabo Mbeki, or their ministers, civil servants, diplomats and generals. They will be able to target opposition politicians too. They will become immensely powerful. If adequate artificial intelligence applications could be developed – what are called ‘Turing Test-compliant’ artificial intelligence applications – it would soon become affordable to target millions of people with automated […]
[…] ever profits, £9bn and £9.8bn respectively. (2) This was followed by curious press reports that both Shell and BP had hired ex-MI6 staff and a former German intelligence agent to infiltrate Greenpeace (3) and that Tesco had asked MI5 to investigate the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In an obscure spat about […]
