Former Head Spook Attacks UK Government
In an interview given to the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of the UK’s spooks, has attacked UK’s government for, “frightening people in order to be able to pass laws, which restrict civil liberties.”
Dame Stella, 73, became the first woman director general of MI5, the UK’s counter intelligence agency, in 1992. She served in that capacity until 1996. She has long been an outspoken critic of New Labour’s attacks on civil liberties.
In the interview, published in The Daily Telegraph, she said, “Since I have retired, I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt to pass laws, which interfere with people’s privacy.”
Armed Police in London, it became illegal to take such photos this week.
Dame Stella accused the Government of frightening people so fulfilling one of the objectives of terrorists, “that we live in fear and under a police state.”
On Feb, 18, government minister Tony McNulty said Dame Stella was talking, “abject nonsense.” He accused the ex-MI5 chief of playing into the hands of terrorists herself with her, “misguided talk.”
Popularity: 8% [?]
Employment minister McNulty is a career politician. He graduated from the University of Liverpool in Political Theory and has an MA in Political Science from Virginia Tech. He became a Member of Parliament in 1997.
Before his decade as a New Labour ‘Yes’ man, he spent his time as a Principal Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at the University of North London. His presumption of knowing more about balancing security and liberty than the ex-head of MI5 is nonsense.
He is hardly qualified to lecture her on, ‘misguided talk.’ Mind you, he managed to get his name in the papers. This is the most important thing you learn on a Political Theory course.