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read Spycatcher. in the post-war/cold war era, Britain, particularly the upper classes, was fucking riddled with soviet agents, mostly British-born communist sy

read Spycatcher. in the post-war/cold war era, Britain, particularly the upper classes, was fucking riddled with soviet agents, mostly British-born communist sympathisers who were activated by the USSR, and many of them could have been stopped from doing huge damage if simple vetting had been in place this isn't mccarthyite nonsense, this isn't right-wing hatred for communism. I am a socialist. this is the absolute fact that a foreign power was actively, successfully pushing agents into positions in the establishment all over the country. do you think it's a coincidence the vetting stopped when the soviet union collapsed? >The BBC commissions some great content from great creators - as do all British TV channels. If you look at what the BBC itself does, there's a lot of bad there. do you genuinely believe that ITV, Dave, Channel 5, Sky, etc are producing or have ever produced content on par with the BBC? Channel 4 is the only other channel that can even remotely compete, and I would imagine they too would have been equally under MI5's thumb if they'd been important enough to warrant it. going further, do you really think that any British TV channel would have spoken out if MI5 came to them and told them they needed to vet their employees as a matter of national security? even further, has any organisation ever done that in the history of MI5? in the global history of spy agencies?

lmm 1y ago
> read Spycatcher I'm not going to read a whole book to respond to an internet comment, especially when it sounds like it's from someone with vested interests very much on one side. > in the post-war/cold war era, Britain, particularly the upper classes, was fucking riddled with soviet agents, mostly British-born communist sympathisers who were activated by the USSR, and many of them could have been stopped from doing huge damage if simple vetting had been in place What "huge damage" was done? Britain was if anything doing better for itself in that era, and the USSR's success record speaks for itself. > do you think it's a coincidence the vetting stopped when the soviet union collapsed? No, of course not, that removed the funding and the excuse, as well as laying bare the complete failure of the intelligence establishment to accomplish anything useful (given that they'd been unable to see it coming).
- permo-w 1y ago
  this is genuinely fascinating. your viewpoint is that you want the BBC to be disbanded because they didn't reveal anti-soviet vetting 30 years ago, anti-soviet vetting you don't support because you actually don't mind there having been soviet spies, because the USSR had a great "success record" and the UK was more socialist at the time? and you clearly knew this when you wrote your original comment? which leads me to the conclusion that your original comment was written as some kind of bizarre attempt at soviet apologism through an angle of attacking the BBC how insanely odd and anachronistic. honestly, well done for maintaining such ideological rigidity for this long, I'm genuinely not-sarcastically impressed. it's like you woke up from a 30+ year coma
  - lmm 1y ago
    I meant "success record" sarcastically. The USSR didn't achieve much, the whole spy vs spy game did more harm than good for both sides, MI5 themselves did far more damage to British democracy (witness them going after Wilson) than the people they were supposedly protecting us from. The whole security establishment has always been a con from top to bottom and the BBC shouldn't have cooperated with them (although yes, they're far from alone in that error of judgement).
    - permo-w 1y ago
      you may well be right about all of this, and who knows what damage the security establishment is causing right now in their efforts to "protect us", but nonetheless, I think it's incredibly unfair to blame the BBC for doing the same as every other institution in the country would have done if MI5 came knocking. you're setting the bar higher than any institution of any kind has ever reached
verisimi 1y ago
PS - you realise of course that spycatcher was written by an ex-mi5 employee. Is it possible to you that there was no 'ex-' about it, that the book itself is an mi5 product? Agents are known to lie, you know.
- permo-w 1y ago
  if you knew anything about the history or content of the book you would not be saying this

lmm 1y ago

> read Spycatcher I'm not going to read a whole book to respond to an internet comment, especially when it sounds like it's from someone with vested interests very much on one side. > in the post-war/cold war era, Britain, particularly the upper classes, was fucking riddled with soviet agents, mostly British-born communist sympathisers who were activated by the USSR, and many of them could have been stopped from doing huge damage if simple vetting had been in place What "huge damage" was done? Britain was if anything doing better for itself in that era, and the USSR's success record speaks for itself. > do you think it's a coincidence the vetting stopped when the soviet union collapsed? No, of course not, that removed the funding and the excuse, as well as laying bare the complete failure of the intelligence establishment to accomplish anything useful (given that they'd been unable to see it coming).

permo-w 1y ago
this is genuinely fascinating. your viewpoint is that you want the BBC to be disbanded because they didn't reveal anti-soviet vetting 30 years ago, anti-soviet vetting you don't support because you actually don't mind there having been soviet spies, because the USSR had a great "success record" and the UK was more socialist at the time? and you clearly knew this when you wrote your original comment? which leads me to the conclusion that your original comment was written as some kind of bizarre attempt at soviet apologism through an angle of attacking the BBC how insanely odd and anachronistic. honestly, well done for maintaining such ideological rigidity for this long, I'm genuinely not-sarcastically impressed. it's like you woke up from a 30+ year coma
- lmm 1y ago
  I meant "success record" sarcastically. The USSR didn't achieve much, the whole spy vs spy game did more harm than good for both sides, MI5 themselves did far more damage to British democracy (witness them going after Wilson) than the people they were supposedly protecting us from. The whole security establishment has always been a con from top to bottom and the BBC shouldn't have cooperated with them (although yes, they're far from alone in that error of judgement).
  - permo-w 1y ago
    you may well be right about all of this, and who knows what damage the security establishment is causing right now in their efforts to "protect us", but nonetheless, I think it's incredibly unfair to blame the BBC for doing the same as every other institution in the country would have done if MI5 came knocking. you're setting the bar higher than any institution of any kind has ever reached

verisimi 1y ago

PS - you realise of course that spycatcher was written by an ex-mi5 employee. Is it possible to you that there was no 'ex-' about it, that the book itself is an mi5 product? Agents are known to lie, you know.

permo-w 1y ago
if you knew anything about the history or content of the book you would not be saying this