Squidgygate: Encyclopedia II - Squidgygate - Government reaction

Squidgygate - Government reaction

Suspicion about responsibility for the Squidgygate leak (perhaps naturally) focussed on Britain's security service, MI5. Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke said: "The security services are strictly controlled in their telephone tapping, and I know of no evidence whatever to indicate that they were involved." Such suggestions, he added, were "wild" and "extremely silly". This was a rather surprising statement, since the incident had not, as far as is known, at this stage been investigated in any official capacity.

On the same day as these remarks, members of the Commons all-party home affairs committee had their first meeting with Dame Stella Rimington, director general of MI5. Committee member John Greenway MP (Conservative) remarked that the recent Camillagate leak "strengthens the case for a parliamentary committee to have responsibility to oversee or scrutinise the work of the security services [..] I suspect that colleagues will want to ask how true the allegations [of MI5 complicity in the 'Camillagate' leak] are, and I suspect that she [Rimington] will refuse to tell us." No record exists of matters discussed at the meeting. ^[24]

Squidgygate - Context: other examples of high level UK bugging

High-level eavesdropping in British politics is not unprecedented.

The first major 'Establishment' figure to question the official line on Squidgygate was Lord Rees-Mogg, the arch-conservative chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

He had proved an early proponent of the "rogue spies" school of thought in January 1993, when he used his Times column to accuse elements within the British security services of engineering the leaks. "All those tapes were made within a month," he wrote.

"The most likely explanation is that MI5 did it to protect the Royal family at a time of danger from the IRA. I don't think there was any sense of wrong-doing, but once they were made there was the danger of a leak ^[25]."

Examples of such eavesdropping and leaking follow.

A former Canadian intelligence officer, Mike Frost retired in 1992, after 20 years' service. Frost has told how Canada's 'listening' capabilities had been utilised by Margaret Thatcher, when Prime Minister, to spy on two [unnamed] cabinet colleagues.

"She wanted to find out not what they were saying, but what they were thinking," he said.

GCHQ, the government's listening post in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was to have been used to carry out this surveillance, but they approached the Canadian intelligence services, because the operation was too politically sensitive. The spying was organised from the offices of Macdonald house in Grosvenor Square, London, the home of the Canadian High Commission.

The Canadian officer who led the spying operation personally drove to GCHQ to deliver the fruits of the snooping: tape-recordings of the ministers' communications over a three-week period. Frost did not know, or perhaps simply did not say, what use was made of these tapes ^[26].

During the "Spycatcher" controversy of 1987, the British Conservative government sought to suppress the Australian publication of the memoirs of Peter Wright (a former deputy director of MI5).

Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock suddenly found himself accused by the Conservative party of talking to Wright's lawyers.

Kinnock had indeed done so, via international telephone, but with a General Election looming, Kinnock apparently did not want to be seen as some kind of "security risk", and so he declined to ask publicly how the Conservative party had come to know the contents of his private phone calls ^[27].

A few days before Clarke's remarks, the Daily Mirror had run with "Camillagate", an eight-minute tape of Prince Charles exchanging sexually explicit pleasantries with his mistress, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Richard Stott, editor of the Mirror, claimed that the tape had been recorded by "a very ordinary member of the public", although the paper was not allowed to keep or to make a copy of the tape. But the Sunday Times reported that an anonymous freelance journalist from Manchester was known to be attempting to sell a complete copy of the original tape, asking price £50,000. The reignition of the controversy over "Squidgygate" had been instantaneous: the date of the "Camillagate" recording was known to be 18 December, 1989 - just weeks before the "Squidygate" tape had been recorded.

Squidgygate - Political fallout

Before any investigation into "Squidgygate" or "Camillagate" had begun, Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke told the House of Commons: "There is nothing to investigate. [...] I am absolutely certain that the allegation that this is anything to do with the security services or GCHQ [...] is being put out by newspapers, who I think feel rather guilty that they are using plainly tapped telephone calls." ^[28] [emphasis supplied]

Her Majesty's opposition, the Labour Party, accused Clarke of irresponsibility, issuing a rather sardonic statement: "He has to show that he is taking these allegations seriously, otherwise he will be perceived as being unable to control an organisation for which he is responsible."

Squidgygate - Official position

John Major's government eventually published two reports, both of which cleared MI5 and MI6 of involvement in the "Royalgates" tapes.

One of these was the annual report of the Interceptions Commissioner, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, who oversaw the intelligence-gathering practices of the security services. Excerpt follows:

"[Lord Bingham] was impressed by the scrupulous adherence to the statutory provisions [against misconduct] of those involved in the [intelligence-gathering] procedures."

In a clear reference to the "Squidgygate" affair, he commented on "the stories which occasionally circulated in the press with regard to the interceptions by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ," stating that such stories were, in his experience, "without exception false, and gave an entirely misleading impression to the public both of the extent of official interception and of the targets against which interception is directed."

Conservative MP Richard Shepherd called the official reports: "two old buffers saying that in their opinion the security services act with integrity".

The National Heritage Secretary Peter Brook gave MPs "a categorical assurance that the heads of the agencies concerned have said there is no truth in the rumours ^[29]."

Squidgygate - Chance Interceptions?

The circumstances surrounding the recording of the Royal tapes are still poorly understood.

The "Squidgygate" and "Camillagate" tapes were both analysed by experts.

The "Camillagate" tape showed no signs of suspicious treatment, and appeared to be just what it was claimed to have been: a recording, "from air", of Charles and Camilla talking privately on 18 December 1989.

Chance interception of high-level communication is not unknown: during the 1982 Falklands conflict, a radio ham in London had intercepted and taped a conversation between the then-Prime Minister's press secretary Sir Bernard Ingham and the Assistant Director-General of the BBC, in which the BBC was pressurised into sharing war footage with commercial rivals ITN ^[30].

The "Squidgygate" tape showed clear signs of having been doctored and rebroadcast on 4 January 1990; four days after its initial interception on New Year's Eve, 1989. However, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that it could not have been recorded off-air in the manner claimed by Reenan and Norgrove.

Squidgygate - Culprits' identities are an official secret

The Queen was so disturbed by the "Squidygate" episode that she requested MI5 to conduct an investigation to discover the culprit or culprits. Since the motive couldn't have been financial, said the investigators - the only winners were the radio hams and the press - it must have been political ^[31].

In 2002, Diana's former protection officer, Inspector Ken Wharfe revealed that the investigation had "identified all those involved, but for legal reasons I cannot expand further, and nor is it necessary to do so."

Wharfe adds, however, that: "It does [..] lend credence to the Princess's belief, so often dismissed by her detractors, that the Establishment was out to destroy her ^[32]."

This directly contradicts the statements of Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke, and conflicts with the statements of Lord Bingham of Cornhill - a Privy Councillor since 1986- whose report claims that the interception services behaved properly.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Government reaction", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki