Although MI5 has become much more "touchy-feely" of late, it is
still a shock for men of a certain age not only to see the Director-General
but also to hear her speak.
For those brought up on John Le Carre and James Bond – although I rather
suspect he was MI6 – "C", or whatever initial the top man
(never a woman in those days) adopted, he was always an unseen, indeed
unknown, figure.
But here, in the flesh, was Elizabeth Manningham-Buller talking to business
leaders at the Confederation of British Industry Conference in Birmingham.
She didn't stay to answer questions, but this was very much the new security
service.
Miss Manningham-Buller's father was Harold MacMillan's attorney-general and
lord chancellor, memorably renamed "Sir Reginald Bullying Manner"
by the late Times columnist Bernard Levin.
I don't know about him, but Sir Reginald's daughter seemed very nice, even if
her message was chilling. "There is a serious and sustained threat,"
she told Britain's top industrialists... and me.
Terrifying, but MI5 is galloping to the rescue. Indeed there is even a link
from the CBI's website to MI5's. It works and we can use it
to seek advice.
"I hope it's interactive," said another formidable woman with
intelligence links. Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the chairman of QinetiQ
Group plc, was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee in the early
1990s but I don't suppose she said this because she expected middle-aged men
to start sending e-mails to the lovely Keeley Hawes (from he television
series, Spooks, which coincidentally was on the night after Miss
Manningham-Buller's address).
She left (Miss Manningham-Buller that is, not Keeley Hawes) as soon as she
finished her short speech. She was discreetly followed by several men
although sadly none of them was speaking into his wrist (which they do a lot
of on Spooks).
"What has this to do with SMEs?" I can feel you thinking. Well,
quite a lot actually, even though I don't suppose Al-Qaeda is going to seek
out Cheltenham-based small publishers.
There are other security threats, electronic as well as physical, and it is in
all our interests to guard ourselves against them. On the same bill as Miss
Manningham-Buller and Dame Pauline (one of Greg Dyke's "posh women"
BBC governors, although she too seemed very nice) was David Burrill, head of
group security at British American Tobacco, who Digby Jones, the
organisation's chief executive, said were valuable members of the CBI as
long as the law stays the same.
Mr Burrill made the point that big business is only as secure as its customers
and suppliers, and we all know that suppliers are usually SMEs.
Indeed, he was asked by Hugh Morgan Williams, chair of the CBI's SME council,
what security advice could be sought by companies employing less than 250
people "bearing in mind cost-benefit analysis", which I took to
mean that most of us cannot afford it.
Mr Burrill replied: "Small companies which seek advice may get it from
big companies who've been able to afford it. We are happy to provide advice
to suppliers and I cannot think of a single occasion when we've charged for
it."
But the most disconcerting fact to emerge from the session on security – the
first the CBI has held at its annual conference – was not that Al-Qaeda is
out there lurking (and honestly Miss Manningham-Buller, I am not being
complacent). It was that 30 per cent of former employees still had access to
their old firms' systems more than a year after they had left.
"Now that worries me," said Digby Jones.
