What to do with failed & criminal institutions like the Foriegn Office and British Intelligence?

[Paul Rigby]

Gordon Brown has made much in the current election campaign of a promise to furnish the powers by which failed police forces can be taken over by more efficient ones. Why, I wonder, are the thuggy charlatans of British Intelligence and the Foreign Office excluded from the policy?

[Paul Rigby]

I had a very specific reason for posing this question.

Last night, while watching the first episode of the re-make of The Prisoner and consequently needing something to do with my brain, it struck me that among the millions of words expended on the global financial melt-down, I couldn't remember a single piece asking "where were the spooks?"

Now, given the numerous connections between the intelligence world and the financial centres of London and New York - the list of SIS men alone who've gone into merchant banking would fill a directory - not to mention they're supposed to cover the water-front in terms of threats to national well-being, what, I wondered, had they been doing throughout the build-up to the collapse?

Any one seen anything which examines the role of Britain's sleeping secret policemen?

[David Guyatt]

Well, I know for a fact that they work hand in glove with senior bankers. My old berth had at least half a dozen SIS officers working in their "Defence Department" (that is to say, if one is speaking openly and not using euphemisms, the "arms finance department"). One of them even used to head an off-the-books Foreign Office assassination squad. I also met at least one other from another bank (UBS, in fact) who invited me to lunch so that he could 'look me over' just prior to my unit being bought - in secret - by HSBC. This was slightly before the then Chairman of HSBC spent some time sitting at my desk - looking at the figures so to speak.

There is no question whatever in my mind that spookdom knew exactly what was going to happen. Simply because I am also certain that senior bankers knew what was going to happen -- years before it happened (probably a decade) -- as did senior government ministers and officials.

Btw, I started watching the new Prisoner series ----- for about 90 seconds before turning over to watch something that was written with at least one active brain-cell. Such tosh on the TV these days.

[Paul Rigby]

Well, I know for a fact that they work hand in glove with senior bankers.

Interesting to find out a) which spooks worked for/with/through, let us say, Goldman Sachs; and b) how much they made out of the various mega-scams in operation.