Hollywood Beckons

You will all be delighted to hear that today I finally signed away the rights to my life story. Stop laughing at the back!

Longstanding followers of The Bright Stuff will remember that I (perhaps rather grandly) said I was leaving the New Statesman to work on a film project. The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War is the story of Katharine Gun, the GCHQ whistleblower who disclosed details of a joint US/UK operation to fix the vote at the United Nations for a second resolution to authorise war in Iraq. As the recipient of the original leaked document from the US National Security Agency asking for GCHQ’s help I played a small part in the drama.

Now that Katharine and I have signed up, the writers of the script, Sara and Greg Bernstein can start hawking it around Hollywood’s A-list actresses, who hold all the power. I’m sure the Winslets and Blanchetts will be falling over each other to play a woman who stood alone within her organisation to avert what she saw as an illegal war.