THE conventions of secrecy were maintained. Only Richard Dearlove’s disembodied voice appeared in front of the Hutton inquiry. But, irrespective of the effect on individuals’ reputations, there are fears that recent events have compromised the Secret Intelligence Service. Its operating procedures have been subjected to too much daylight, and it has been used for purposes that were never intended. One former intelligence officer has described this as the Icarus syndrome; SIS has flown too close to the sun. In this case, the sun is Tony Blair.
There is a piquancy in Mr Blair’s developing such a close and indeed affectionate relationship with SIS. About a year before he became Prime Minister, he was invited to lunch at the service’s Vauxhall Cross HQ. Those present hoped to dispel any suggestion that they were a bunch of right-wing fascists and to assure the Labour leader that SIS would work as hard and loyally for his government as it had for previous Labour governments. Tony Blair seemed unimpressed. He appeared to take little notice of what was said to him. The lunch was a stilted affair; it was one of the rare occasions when Mr Blair’s charm had deserted him. He came across as graceless, edgy and uninterested. After his departure, his hosts scratched their heads over his attitude. They wondered if his mind had been poisoned against them and, if so, whether the damage was redeemable. No one present at that lunch – least of all Mr Blair himself – would have predicted that within four years the new PM would have at least as good a working relationship with SIS as any of his predecessors.
This was partly a result of changed circumstances. Back in 1996, Tony Blair expected to be a domestically focused PM, with only one major foreign-policy priority: Europe, where SIS had little contribution to make.
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