"We should keep our nerve and our faith in our own values. Our own behaviour - especially with respect to the rule of law - is very important."

So say those complicit in torture. I guess that must be legal now.

I only hope that Wacky Jacquy takes note of what this guy says: it might just lessen her obsession with databases and monitoring in the guise of terrorism prevention.

But somehow I think she will just continue her war on privacy inexorably.

This can't be right - we can't have ex-SIS operatives going around telling people that the threat of global terrorism has been massively over-egged, used as a method of introducing ineffective legislation, that restricts our rights in society, not used in the spirit of the law against photographers and old men at Labour party conferences.

Jacqui Smith / Gordon Brown you’d better be get your finger out and do a David Kelly on him pronto – we don’t want people playing down the hysteria.

"Inkster also offered an insight into life in Her Majesty's secret service, saying "I come from an organisation that doesn't do Powerpoint culture".

For all that we see/hear/experience, it is hard not to conclude that MI6 does precious little.

Is Mr. Scarlett still wasting everyone's time squatting in the nest? And have they any Controls in the CyberSpace realm which so easily can render their other efforts wasted and completely unnecessary or is that MI5 territory, although one would have thought that Virtual Landscaping for the Better Beta Management of Perception was a Prime Facility to be made available/accessible to all who would have any need of it.

In fact, one would have thought that it should be a seamless provision.

Might I suggest that either one or the other actually create such a ........ well, it would be an Operational Conversion Unit given the Methodologies and Tools that IT would employ. After All, it is not as if they don't know of someone who can run it for them, if they are behind the curve in ITs Special Application of ProgramMIng Programs, is it?

As you can probably deduce, I am underwhelmed at their pedestrian performance in a stellar field and even more so that they would not see the Intelligence Deficit themselves. It does make a mockery of all of the supposed high tech electronic monitoring of communications which is supposed to render the future picture to them and yet may only be used as more of a tool for entrapment than sublime leadership ....... which incidentally is what IT can do and do QuITe Effortlessly whenever you know what to do and how to do IT.

And whenever such Facility exists, and is studiously ignored in one Service/Nation, will it naturally migrate elsewhere for alternate consideration.

I suppose just like everything else today, you just can't get quality staff. Certainly top class leadership has been missing for some considerable time.

He sounds far too intelligent, sensible and practical to be in a position to make comments to the media.

They don't talk like that whilst still in office.

... just stop bombing the crap out of groups of people in far-away countries, whom you know nothing about.

If you want to stop the spread of radicalism, spend a few $Bn on home comforts: usable roads, 24*7 electricity, nice food, engaging TV programmes, decent jobs and educating the masses. They'll be far to dumb, fat and happy to want to go around blowning themselves (or anyone else) up, plus you'll have undermined the true believers ability to stir up discontent.

Want to stop the scourge of drugs, drug-related theft and killing? Simple, just buy up the heroin, cocaine and dope at source. Pay the farmers more than the cartels do (see above: terrorism) then distribute it legally, through government run outlets. Apart from the savings on interdiction, the govt. could make a pretty penny from taxes - just like with booze, coffee, tobacco etc.

So far as bird flu goes, that's more difficult. You need to set up labs to isolate the quickly mutating strains, produce, test and distribute the jabs and make sure there's enough to go around. However, with all the surplus cash from solving the other major world issues, it shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility - there may even be enough money left over to solve world-hunger and climate change, too.

"Quick, fire him! .... He sounds far too intelligent, sensible and practical to be in a position to make comments to the media." .... By Anonymous Coward Posted Wednesday 11th February 2009 13:57 GMT

AC,

Like so many who retire from the active field, having reached as far as they are ever going to go, and usually with the pension secured, they find a brave sensible voice rather than using the one which pays them to spin stuff and nonsense to keep the Ponzis on the rails. The sad bad bit though is that their friends and colleagues are considered so easily expendable, just so much collateral damage to be accepted and forgotten and ignored for the greater good of a false story to maintain the old boy networks which profit from Systemic Abuse

Now stop worrying and enjoy life...

Hey f--- you, we're good at bombing brown people in poor ass countries with no real army, that's what the UK and USA do best, bomb poor brown people. Even better if they're a different religion.

We also don't need science - we've already got enough bombs, we just need to make sure nobody else can make bigger bombs, as long as that's the case it's gravey baby, now shut the hell up before we send some coppers round your house to arrest you for having a child porn! Or is extreme porn going to become the flavour of the day? Ahh who cares we own your ass anyway.

Love

NuGov UK Ministry of Fear

... which in turn is several orders of magnitude less serious than Investment Bankers and Bank Directors !!

"Inkster also offered an insight into life in Her Majesty's secret service, saying "I come from an organisation that doesn't do Powerpoint culture"

That would be in contrast to Her Majesty's public services, which are incapable of operating without bullet points and moody background graphics. (Hmm, much more of this and I'll be wishing the UK was actually run by the spooks. That can't be healthy.)

That was beautiful, Miss Bee.

-dZ.

... there about controlling the population. I am glad to see someone with some commonsense. Imagine if we invested the £12 billion it might cost to build the UK government's proposed communications database into road safety. How many lives would be saved?