GCHQ

Image via Wikipedia

When I was at what the BBC calls, the secret spy station at Cheltenham, my left wing views were clearly a subject of concern to them Indeed, whilst at GCHQ Bude I was called in and asked, "Where my loyalties lay". I replied firstly to my conscience (I had been brought up a good Catholic although I am now agnostic), secondly to my family and after that to the wider society in which I lived.
Throughout my time there however it was evident that the vast majority of officers who served at the place had extremely right wing and racist views. This was nearly fifty years ago so I was rather surprised to see the following items appear in several newspapers recently.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lack of ethnic minorities at GCHQ 'undermines national security' (telegraph.co.uk)
• 'Too few ethnic officers' at GCHQ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Report shows racism claims at GCHQ (channel4.com)

In fact for those of you studious or interested enough to research these topics, in the days when the Labour Party was still a democratic party I managed to get a resolution passed at their annual conference (either in 1984 or 1985) calling upon the Security Services (broadly MI5, MI6 and GCHQ but there are others) to

be representative of the society in which we lived. By that I meant that these organisations should include people from all ethnic and religious backgrounds. Although the resolution was passed it would appear from the above that Jews, Muslims and people of various ethnic backgrounds and who hold varying political views are either totally missing or seriously unrepresented.

As for me I once voted Communist in a local election, because he was the best and most qualified candidate standing in my ward,  and wore my CND sticker on my car with pride. You see it is not the likes of me that they should be worrying about but those in senior positions from Oxbridge who run these places such as Philby & Co.