[…] and should inform 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 […]
[…] Tony Stephens, that Colin and I were telling the truth, and that contingency plans were made to prevent our allegations being made public. At that meeting, the MI5 legal officer, Mr Bernard ‘X’ Shelton, was advised to approach the Chief Constable of Royal Ulster Constabulary in order to stop the current investigations into my […]
British traditions in decline include a sense of the ridiculous as a weapon of state, jingoism and understatement. The last of these was always a brilliant British con: you only have to look at the gothic majesty of the palace of Westminster (Parliament) to realise we have never really done understatement. ‘A sense of the […]
[…] not, he is the referee and he can send any man off the field and call our man on at any time he likes’. Presumably an exaggeration, MI5 felt strongly enough about the comment to have it excised from a 1981 Panorama programme, presented by Tom Mangold, the first ever made about ‘British intelligence’. […]
[…] 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 towards 2008, the last Prime Minister’s over-speedy insertion of expensive military collateral into […]
[…] 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 salmon farming Tesco believed – apparently – that the RSPB had […]
[…] the police and army stepped beyond the law, in terms of indigenous collusion, is understandable if not to be condoned. What matters more to historians is how MI5, as an example, intervened in this process to service various agendas, some of which had little to do with fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland. The attempted […]
[…] Green Party (two evaluating the recent census boycott campaign), a detailed expose of a regional branch of the Verfassungsschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s MI5). Using his former position as Green representative in the Baden-Wurtemberg regional parliament to prepare an in-depth account of the Verfassungsschutz, Thilo Weichert gives names, addresses, telephone […]
[…] to tackle something as sensitive as immigration and concern about the impact on trade with Middle Eastern countries. The combination of these led the British state, through MI5, coming to a kind of unstated agreement with the Jihadists that they wouldn’t play at home. Hence the growth of Londonistan, argues Phillips. It is the […]
Searchlight At the beginning of the essay on the Blairites above, I discuss the concept of political contamination, the denigration of people on the left by association – real or fictitious – with ideas or people on the right. The most enthusiastic users of the contamination device in Britain today are found in Searchlight magazine. […]
