[…] 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 […]
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 […]
In 1953 Dr Drank Olsen, a scientist working for the CIA, was found dead on the pavement outside a New York hotel. The Agency instituted a cover-up of the circumstances of his death. The cover-up survived until 1975 when it was revealed that Olsen had been one of many people who had been unwittingly given […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] take Agee’s word against Kalugin’s. For the moment, I do too.* This alleged Agee connection with the KGB is presumably the flimsy basis of the allegation, from MI5, in the notorious ‘Gable memo’ (reprinted in Lobster 24) that Kelly was a ‘KGB man’. You can see how the smear went: Agee went to the […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] interesting companion piece to Jeffrey Bale’s esssay on WACL and the Moonies in Lobster 21. Anybody interested in John Hope’s essay in issue 22 on Maxwell Knight, MI5 and the British Fascisti et al, will want to get a copy of its companion piece, ‘British Fascism and the State 1917–27: a re-examination of the […]
