STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Deep state of anxiety
Richard Norton-Taylor's book on the secret intelligence services raises worrying questions about their intentions and fitness for purpose, says JOE GILL
PROTECTING THEIR OWN: Armed guard outside Parliament following the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing by Salman Abedi, previously assisted by the security services
[Katie Chan/Creative Commons]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
The State of Secrecy: Spies and the Media in Britain
by Richard Norton-Taylor
(IB Tauris, £20)
IN 1985 my late father Ken Gill had a meeting with Cathy Massiter, a whistleblower from GCHQ, Britain’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham.
As he told me afterwards, Massiter recited a personal conversation between him and his sister that, word for word, took place at our home. It was entirely mundane and proof of the fact that our house had been bugged by the security services and that GCHQ was listening in.
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