The Times re-visits one of the many fantasies concocted by MI6 in the bad old days:
MI6 believed that Michael Foot had been a paid informant of the Soviet Union and was prepared to warn the Queen of his “KGB history” when he stood to become prime minister, its officers have revealed in a new book.
The British intelligence apparatus concluded that the evidence presented by a Soviet defector about the Labour leader’s links with the KGB was strong enough to warrant the unprecedented constitutional action.
They have to admit, however:
The revelations come 23 years after Foot successfully sued The Sunday Timeswhen it published Gordievsky’s claims that the KGB held an extensive file on the former Labour leader, whom it had named Agent Boot.
Foot, who died in 2010 aged 96, had described the allegations as a “big lie” and said that as far as he knew he had never met or seen a KGB agent in his life. He and his supporters dismissed the allegations as MI5 smears.
I had the privilege of meeting Michael Foot in the early 1970s when he was Leader of the House of Commons. A nice man, a genuine democrat. The least likely guy to be a KGB agent.
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