I've read spy novels, I know how this works.

From the Evening Standard:

British spies are risking their lives daily in Islamic State heartlands to “take the fight to the enemy,” the head of MI6 said today.

Alex Younger stressed agents recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service had penetrated IS “upstream” to stop terror attacks on Britain’s streets.

But in his first public speech, the SIS chief laid bare the perils these individuals faced operating in “the most dangerous and hostile environments on earth” - where paranoid IS fanatics have executed hundreds of people wrongly suspected of being spies.

Spies spend most of their time spying on each other and searching for moles in their own ranks, so it's always good idea to give the other side the impression that you have double agents in their organisations, even if you haven't. Unless you actually have, in which case you have to try and disguise the source of your information etc, in endless twists of logic.

We know that ISIS is just Islamism taken to extremes, they love nothing more than raping, maiming, torturing and killing people and when they run out of victims they just slaughter each other for whatever spurious reason. (The Saudis are hardly better, but for some reason, they count as a reliable ally, go figure). No doubt people in ISIS are paranoid already, of their actual enemies and each other, so basically MI6 has now signed a death warrant for anybody connected with ISIS who has lived in the UK. In which case good work!

If we assume that the head of MI6 is acting rationally, the logical deduction must be that we have no British spies in ISIS. The gamble is, will ISIS assume that Younger is a blithering idiot who has just given away our trade secrets and turn on each other, or will they assume it is a bluff and ignore it? Or is it a double bluff? Or a treble bluff?

This is easier with novels because you can just read to the end and find out...

"John Kerry tells fugitive Edward Snowden he's doing the right thing"

From the BBC:

US Secretary of State John Kerry has admitted that intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is probably "doing the sensible thing" as a fugitive from justice, who has "manned up" and accepted that he can never return home.

Mr Kerry added that if Mr Snowden, 30, "still believes in America, then he clearly doesn't know much about the American system of justice".

His comments come in the wake of an interview with NBC in which Mr Snowden said he sought asylum in Russia because the US revoked his passport. Mr Snowden also described himself as a trained spy, not a low-level analyst.

"There are times when even for a patriot, doing the right thing means running away," Mr Kerry said on Wednesday. "If Mr Snowden wants to come back to the United States… he knows that we'll be ready to lock him up immediately."

Mr Kerry also hoped that the former National Security Agency contractor was becoming "confused", adding "the United States wants to do great damage to this man."

"We're vaguely hoping that in a moment of loneliness, he'll be stupid enough to come back to the US," Mr Kerry said.

"UK intelligence chiefs in first public grilling"

From the BBC:

The heads of the UK's spying agencies were today quizzed by MPs and peers in an unprecedented televised hearing.

GCHQ director Sir Iain Lobban, MI5 director general Andrew Parker and MI6 chief Sir John Sawers have spent the day in front of Intelligence and Security Committee shaking their heads slowly while remaining tight lipped.

The questioning follows leaks by ex-US security contractor Edward Snowden which raised concerns about spying.

Committee chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind began the hearing by saying it was a "very significant step forward in the transparency of our intelligence agencies". The agency chiefs responded by pressing their hands over their ears and humming loudly.

When asked about their role in a post-Cold War world, MI5 chief Andrew Parker held a straightened index finger in front of his pursed lips while staring straight ahead.

GCHQ director Sir Iain Lobban was asked whether they were worth the £2bn in taxpayer money they receive each year. His response was to make an exaggerated horizontal zipping motion in front of his mouth and to fold his arms in front of his chest.

MI6 chief Sir John Sawers's response to questions on why the security services had failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11 and the Arab Spring was to clap one hand over his mouth. With the other hand, he locked his mouth shut with an imaginary key and then tossed it over his shoulder.

The hearing had to be adjourned after Andrew Parker managed to hold his breath for so long that he started to go blue in the face.

"GCHQ surveillance: Germany blasts UK over mass monitoring"

From The Guardian, 26 June 1943:

The German government has expressed the growing anger of its military chiefs over Britain's mass programme of monitoring radio traffic and directly challenged UK ministers over the whole basis of GCHQ's Bletchley Park surveillance operation.

The German Reichsinnenminister, Dr Wilhelm Frick, who has described the secret operation by Britain's eavesdropping agency as "a rather unsporting way of conducting warfare", warned UK ministers that evil totalitarian states could not flourish when enemy countries penetrated their "veil of secrecy".

Reichsaussenminister Joachim von Ribbentrop sent two letters on Tuesday to the British Home Secretary, Anthony Eden, stressing the widespread concern the disclosures have triggered among the German armed forces and demanding to know the extent to which their military operations have been compromised.

It is the first major challenge to Winston Churchill's coalition government to publicly justify its mass radio monitoring operation, which was revealed in documents leaked to the Soviets by GCHQ officer John Cairncross.

A spokesman for GCHQ refused to comment, pointing out that he was sworn to silence by the Official Secrets Act until 1975.

Fun Online Polls: Election results & Spy in a bag

It appears that the readers of this 'blog are not the representative sample of the UK population I had imagined (well fancy that!). The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which party will you vote for on Thursday?
UKIP - 49%
Conservative - 5%
BNP - 1%
Lib Dem - 1%
Green - 1%
Labour - 1%
SNP - 0%
Other, please specify - 6%
I can't be bothered to vote - 8%
There are no elections in my area - 29%

As it happens, UKIP retained their 9 councillors who were up for re-election, and the number of Labour councillors shot up from 1,335 to 2,158. UKIP candidates appear to have got about 13% - 14% of the vote where they stood, which is pretty good by their standards, but they don't have many councillors to show for it.
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With the elections over and done with, I'll start next week's Fun Online Poll a bit early.

That whole spy-in-a-bag story is one of those mysteries, and even the coroner - with mountains of evidence at her disposal - couldn't make up her mind how or why he died.

So let's settle the whole thing quickly and cheaply - on the basis of no evidence whatsoever except what we might have skim read in the newspapers, such as the episode where he asked somebody to tie him to the bed but couldn't free himself - by harnessing The Power Of The Internet.

Cast your verdict here or use the widget in the side bar.