SPOOKS

...both agencies decided to stop speaking to me several years ago, in circumstances that at first I found infuriating. (Quite why MI6 cut me off, I never found out, but I have been told that MI5 objected to several interviews I carried out with Britons released from Guantanamo Bay who said that MI5 staff had been complicit in their treatment and interrogation while in US custody. It wasn't that this was untrue, but it was apparently regarded as "deeply unhelpful".)

This article is not, however, the product of sour grapes. It is my honest belief that the way Britain's spooks deal with the media has simply become untenable, gravely damaging journalists and spies alike...