ANOTHER VOICE
A possible reason why the Sunday Times is so concerned for Mrs Rimington's safety
AUBERON WAUGH
0 ne does actually have to buy food, even in my position,' said Stella Rimington, the director-general of the security services (MI5) when the Sunday Times telephoned her truculently last week to announce that she had been seen shopping at the local Marks & Spencers. The Sunday Times Insight Team had decided to report her for lax personal security: The Home Office Blue Book ... warns potential targets to look out for suspect vehi- cles and never to leave their cars unattended. Yet last week, a Sunday Times journalist who watched Rimington for four days from a car parked only yards from her home, watched her as she arrived back from a shopping trip. The MI5 chief left her car with the boot open as she took bags indoors, unaware that she was being observed.
Her house in north London was unguarded, complained the Sunday Times, and she has no bodyguards:
Insight has also been able to photograph her outside her home, where she has no protec- tion, and has discovered how easy it would be to mount a blackmail operation by paying money into her bank account using the name of the head of the Russian security service, the successor of the KGB.
In fact the cretins of the Sunday Times did exactly that, paying unspecified sums of money into her account using the names of Viktor Barannikov and Nikolai Golushko, whom they believe to be the head and deputy head of Russian security. I hope Mrs Rimington keeps the money. But did they seriously imagine she would be open to blackmail as the result of this babyish exercise? I suspect their motives were somewhat different.
It was only recently that the Government — or rather Mr Major — decided to announce the name of the head of MI5. Until then his identity was technically secret, although easy enough to discover by anyone with a mind to it. Under those cir- cumstances, director-generals lived com- paratively normal private lives. It has always been repugnant to the British tradi- tion to give bodyguards to anonymous pub- lic servants. Certain Cabinet ministers have always been able to call for them to fulfil the vital role (in a democracy) of bolstering the politicians' self-importance; and of course the royal family have always been guarded on the grounds that they are in limited supply. But if Mrs Rimington is blown up tomorrow, she will be replaced in her post the day after. Police bodyguards are unendurably expensive, as anyone will know who has been following the Rushdie drama.
So why does the Sunday Times concern itself with the level of protection afforded to Mrs Rimington? When Roger Hollis was director-general under Macmillan, he lived the life of an ordinary private citizen in a comfortable, unguarded house in Campden Hill Square. Although I do not suppose he was often to be seen in Marks & Spencers — important people did not have to do their own shopping to the same extent in those days — he was to be seen at dinner parties, around the clubs and golf courses like anyone else. At one point John Wynd- ham, who was the Prime Minister's private secretary, took it into his head that it might be amusing to telephone Hollis at his pri- vate residence and say, 'Aha, villain! I know your secret' — before hanging up. These calls were eventually traced to the Prime Minister's private office in Admiralty House, and there was a tremendous stink. Later suspicions of Hollis, however unjust, add a certain edge to the story, and may explain the vehemence with which Wynd- ham (later Lord Egremont) used to deny the story.
My point is that it was never the practice to treat the heads of MI5 or MI6 as if they were Cabinet ministers or film stars, with bodyguards and minders, when their identi- ty was unannounced. Why does the Sunday Times wish us to treat them in this way now that Mrs Rimington's identity has been dis- closed? What business is it of the Sunday Times if she chooses to take risks?
One possible answer would be that the Sunday Times, in common with much of the Murdoch press, has a peculiar delight in sneaking. Usually the sneaking is of a sexu- al nature, as with poor Frank Bough's visit to a disciplinarian lady, or Lord Gowrie's to a massage parlour, or Lord Lambton's to a tart in Maida Vale 20 years ago. This might be justified on grounds that the punters like it. Other exposés — for example, the inquiry into whether hunts declare money from knackered hides for tax purposes may be explained by a delight in sneaking which seems peculiar to Andrew Neil and his class. Perhaps it is because so few of Murdoch's employees have had the benefit of public school education that so many sneaks seem to congregate under his ban- ner, and such a smell of priggishness arises from Wapping. With no experience of pub- lic school nor of the armed forces, these people need a spell in prison to learn about the British way with sneaks.
But the newspaper's concern for Mrs Rimington's safety falls under none of these headings. Not even Andrew Neil can suppose that Mrs Rimington will get into serious trouble because she had been reported as leaving her car boot open. There is a further dimension to the sneak- ing syndrome which explains the case of Mrs Rimington and also helps to explain the entire phenomenon of compulsive sneaking in its relation to the 'classless' society so beloved of Murdoch, Neil and Major.
The appeal of the 'classless' society is many-pronged. In the first place, it repre- sents a revenge against the old order, against all the people who have snubbed or patronised Murdoch (as a wild, colonial boy) and Neil (as a deeply unattractive, lower-class Scot) and Major (as an ambi- tious Conservative with no obvious advan- tages) and its other exponents on their way up.
In the second place, in order for these personal resentments to win support, it must take on board all the resentment and rancour of the not-so-successful, the gen- uinely disadvantaged, directed against any- one who has done well, any form of privi- lege whether inherited or 'earned'. Hence the vendettas against Frank Bough, John Birt, etc. But finally the 'classless' evange- lists must point to some sort of society which is at the same time classless and acceptable to their own tastes and require- ments — a world fit for Murdoch, Neil, Major et al to live in.
This presents a problem. In a properly classless society the Prime Minister, propri- etor and editor of the Sunday Times will inevitably spend a certain amount of their time shopping in Marks & Spencers open, not only to attacks from the IRA, but to being accosted by any Tom, Dick or Harry and roundly abused in the best democratic manner. This would plainly be completely unacceptable to them. They need protection, they need privilege, they need a definable barrier between them- selves and those less successful. . . . By behaving as she is bound to do in a classless society, Mrs Rimington has let the side down and put the fear of the devil into our new aristocrats.
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