As Edward Snowden confirmed beyond doubt, we live in a world where our most intimate moments can be seen by would-be extortioners and, more alarmingly, by our governments, says Annie Machon. By Annie Machon in Brussels Special to Consortium News…Read more →
Sputnik – 25.07.2018 UK Labour Party has called on the Conservative government to make clear whether the secret blacklists of civil servants, introduced by the cabinet of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, are still in place, Shadow Lord President of the Council Jon Trickett said on Wednesday. “How many civil servants were denied career progression […]
For the last several weeks the British media has been in full panic mode after two people were apparently poisoned in the English town of Amesbury, a few miles from Salisbury. The official story is that the pair found a perfume bottle containing Novichok that was discarded by Russian assassins after the poisoning of the […](Read more...)
While most entertainment supports or promote the military, police and intelligence agencies there is a smaller but important sub-genre that critiques and satirises the security state. On this month’s subscriber-only podcast I look at four examples – two TV series and two films – that mock and criticise the security and intelligence agencies. From Snake […](Read more...)
The death of weapons expert and UN inspector Dr David Kelly in the summer of 2003 is one of the Iraq War’s most enduring mysteries. While the case was officially ruled a suicide, this conclusion was reached by an informal government inquiry which the Blair government used to replace the normal, legal inquest procedure. In […](Read more...)
One of the growing markets in spy fiction is pop culture aimed at teenagers or ‘young adults’. The CHERUB series by Robert Muchamore depicts a junior wing of MI6, with the first novel in the series – The Recruit – depicting the recruitment, training and first mission of our protagonist, James Adams. This week I […](Read more...)
MEMO | June 28, 2018 The British government’s involvement in torture and rendition is “beyond doubt” the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said today. The parliamentary committee, which oversee the work of the intelligence machinery of the UK, revealed the true scale of the UK government’s involvement in torture and rendition since the war on […]
JP Sottile joins me in the first hour to discuss the recent airstrikes by the US, UK, and France in Syria. We discuss how this is nothing new for the Trump administration, and how in fact this latest airstrike comes almost on the anniversary of Trump’s earlier strike after the alleged use of chemical weapon. JP and I also discuss how this latest attack appears to have targeted three sites which were completely evacuated and probably were known of in advance.
On March 4th Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the sleepy British city of Salisbury, by forces currently unknown. The British government immediately blamed Russian intelligence, leading to weeks of accusations and counter-accusations, diplomatic expulsions and lots of conspiracy theories about who really did this, and why.
