Time was when these people were just expected to go away and enjoy their gargantuan pensions. That was the deal. Everything that anyone needs to know about Stella Rimington may be read in Seumas Milne's superlative book on the Miners' Strike, The Enemy Within. It is no wonder that she has it in for him.
Senior MI6 figures wanted to prosecute her when she published her autobiography, and it was possible to see their point. But presumably she will finally have her collar felt this time. If not, then her latest action is an official act of the State against the Leader of the Opposition.
Of course these agencies spy on, and generally persecute, the Left. They themselves are the backbone of this country's huge, fabulously funded, and armed-to-the-teeth Far Right. That subculture is almost completely ignored, despite the roots in it of everyone who came of age politically in the 1980s and who is now a figure of any prominence in the Conservative Party, and despite the fact that it alone has murdered a sitting Member of Parliament during the present century. Indeed, since as long ago as 1990.
We do need some kind of overseas intelligence agency. At home, we have the Police, sections of which are very highly specialised. But what is the point of MI5? What is it for? Far Right political organisation and interference, and nothing else, accountable to no one. Everyone from John McDonnell to Peter Hitchens has called for it to be disbanded. Neither of those, for a start, has ever recanted that call. MI5 should be disbanded.
And Stella Rimington should be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. If she is not, then there will be no case for invoking that legislation against anyone else, ever again.
Senior MI6 figures wanted to prosecute her when she published her autobiography, and it was possible to see their point. But presumably she will finally have her collar felt this time. If not, then her latest action is an official act of the State against the Leader of the Opposition.
Of course these agencies spy on, and generally persecute, the Left. They themselves are the backbone of this country's huge, fabulously funded, and armed-to-the-teeth Far Right. That subculture is almost completely ignored, despite the roots in it of everyone who came of age politically in the 1980s and who is now a figure of any prominence in the Conservative Party, and despite the fact that it alone has murdered a sitting Member of Parliament during the present century. Indeed, since as long ago as 1990.
We do need some kind of overseas intelligence agency. At home, we have the Police, sections of which are very highly specialised. But what is the point of MI5? What is it for? Far Right political organisation and interference, and nothing else, accountable to no one. Everyone from John McDonnell to Peter Hitchens has called for it to be disbanded. Neither of those, for a start, has ever recanted that call. MI5 should be disbanded.
And Stella Rimington should be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. If she is not, then there will be no case for invoking that legislation against anyone else, ever again.
Weren't you once mistaken for Seumas Milne?
ReplyDeleteOh, yes. A lady went on at me for 20 minutes about how much she had enjoyed my book on the Miners' Strike. She wouldn't be told.
DeleteYour prose styles are very similar as evidenced in your seminal work; Confessions
ReplyDeleteIt was one of the oddest experiences of my life. On and on she went, utterly convinced that I was he.
Delete