When Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy opens next week, it is likely to have all the spooks in London flocking to the cinema. John Le Carré, who wrote the book and helped direct the film, created a wonderful, almost romantic world of British espionage — mental chess games played against deplorable, but often brilliant opponents in Moscow. How things have changed. Nowadays the spying game means analysing Islamists’ rants, befriending ghastly regimes, fighting ambulance-chasing lawyers and having embarrassing secrets sprayed all over the press.
One almost feels sorry for Sir Mark Allen, who was MI6’s head of counter-intelligence when Tony Blair was sucking up to the Libyans seven years ago. His job was to make friends in Tripoli, so it appears he sent some gushing letters — leaked last week — referring almost reverentially to Col Gaddafi as ‘the Leader’. Worst of all is his cheery reference to Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a Libyan rebel whom the Brits had sent to Tripoli. And with reason: Belhadj was a member of an Islamist Libyan group, then linked to al-Qa’eda. His rendition was probably sanctioned by Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, at a time when Britain’s security services very much feared a new terrorist attack.
But that was then. Gaddafi has gone, and the idea of dealing with him now seems repugnant. Belhadj has emerged as a commander with the triumphant Libyan rebels — and is talking about suing MI6. This is no surprise. Suing Brits is now standard operating procedure for any terror suspect released from interrogation. The template has been set by Binyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian found in Afghanistan by the Americans and sent to Guantánamo Bay. As he previously lived in Britain, and was questioned on behalf of MI5, he sued.
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