Fiasco Royale: Labour’s ineptitude

Fraser Nelson reveals the mounting fury within the intelligence community at ministers’ failure to set in place a serious framework for smashing Islamic terrorism. Too little too late is the angry verdict of the spooks

Throughout their history, James Bond films have shown an eerie ability to predict national security threats. Dr No (1962) looked beyond the Cold War towards a new brand of international terrorism. In Goldfinger (1964) the menace was rogue nuclear weapons, and in Moonraker (1979), biological warfare. In Casino Royale, released this week, Bond fights terrorists by cutting off their sources of funding — precisely the mission which Gordon Brown has set himself in real life. The tragedy for Britain is that this time both 007 and the Chancellor have got it wrong.

The premise of the 21st Bond film is only marginally more fanciful than the Treasury’s. Both believe that extremism requires huge funds — and that it can be conquered by tracking down the terrorists’ banker (Bond) or shutting their bank accounts (Brown). Yet the intelligence community’s problem is that the terrorists cannot be tracked or controlled in such a way: as we have seen time and again, they require almost no resources, just the promise of untold bounty in Paradise. And the security service has lost years in this deadly race because the government has dithered for so long.

The fiasco of Tony Blair’s terror strategy has been one of the best-kept secrets in Whitehall. As a matter of principle, the Prime Minister never answers questions about MI5 or MI6 — although he enjoys flaunting what he claims is his close relationship with the ‘professionals’. Those affected by his years of indecision have tended to keep their counsel. But fractured pieces of information can be collated to form a wider picture of chaos, disharmony and a sense of betrayal.