The view from the frontline

The speech by Jonathan Evans, the Director General of MI5, to the Society of Editor’s conference is well worth reading in full. Iraq and the dodgy dossiers mean that it has become impossible for government ministers to talk about the terrorist threat without been accused of scaremongering or trying to win public support for an extension of the period of detention without trial, ID cars or the like so speeches from Evans and his colleagues are the best information we have on how the security establishment see the situation.

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Sadly, the extent of the threat facing this country is not some piece of Blairite spin. As Evans says,

“You may recall that in her speech this time last year, my predecessor, Eliza Manningham-Buller, pointed out that this country was facing an increasing threat from Al Qaida-inspired terrorism.