Glob-a-log

There’s something rather marvellous about old-fashioned spy stories, and spy movies, don’t you think? Whether it’s tales of beautiful but cold-hearted women, seducing men left and right to get their hands on some dirty state secrets – or the more intellectual type of story, where British upper class actors mumble around their tea (and pipes) and discuss moles and double agents and what have you.

Ah, all those stories of tunnels being dug under the Berlin Wall, spies who came out from the cold – and all those safe houses, poison tipped umbrellas, secret codes and drop points. Tremendous fun, all of it.

The end of the Cold War put a damper on stories like this – although the new War on Terror industry gave the genre a much welcome boost.

Still, you have to fear for those old spies. They did survive the end of communism – which didn’t quite prove to be the ‘end of history’ as some optimistic right wing intellectuals argued – but it’s hard to see how they can overcome this new crisis: One that truly puts their usefulness and raison d’être into doubt.

I mean, who needs spies when the British Ministry of Defence is doing all the heavy lifting for them…?

More than 650 laptop computers have been stolen from the Ministry of Defence in the past four years it has admitted, nearly double the number previously claimed. As well as the 658 laptops, the department also said that 26 portable memory sticks containing classified information had been either stolen or misplaced since January.

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 20:13 and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.