Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who employed Mr 'Kennedy', the undercover provocateur who infiltrated the green movement? Sir Simon Jenkins has the skinny:

It is significant that Kennedy did not work for any police force. He worked for a murky organisation called the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). With a budget of £5m this operates as a branch of the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) which, in turn, works alongside the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU). Ask where this stands, and you will be told it reports to the Association of Chief Police Officers' Terrorism and Allied Matters Committee, codenamed Acpo(TAM).

Only those who have tarried in the foggy corridors of the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Metropolitan police can have any notion of the Orwellian extravagance of these places. Agencies, units and groups cruise shark-like round the feet of terrified Home Office ministers. Their staffs, expenses, overtime and accommodation are crammed into London's Scotland Yard and Tintagel House. If challenged, they incant their motto: "We keep you safe."

It is only occasionally that we catch a glimpse of the extraordinary infrastructure of the security state; but, when the occasion arises, it must be immensely satisfying to the conspiracy theorists among us. And, as ever, and despite being lavished with resources, these secret and unaccountable organs of the state seem curiously incompetent.