Former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller joins Lord Speaker’s Corner to discuss the relationship between MI5 and MI6, reading upside down, meeting Vladimir Putin and whether Russia is at war with the West.
Eliza Manningham-Buller, Baroness Manningham-Buller, served in MI5 for 34 years, becoming Director General in 2002 before retiring in 2007. She spoke to Lord McFall of Alcluith on 22 July 2025 about her career, including how she joined MI5, her family connection with espionage and leading the Service in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings:
“I had learnt something from the military called ‘battle rhythm’, and I expected us to be flat out for some time on this, our role being to help the police in understanding this crime, this atrocity, this horror, and therefore I wanted people to come into work fresh.”
She also dispels a common misconception of the relationship between MI5 and MI6:
“The ‘Le Carré' view that the two organisations are constantly at each other's throats is entirely fictional. We both help each other, as we do with GCHQ. It's a close-knit community. The other very important partner for MI5 is the police.”
Baroness Manningham-Buller later explains she thinks it might be right to agree with foreign policy expert Dr Fiona Hill’s assertion that Russia is already at war with the UK and the West:
“Since the invasion of Ukraine, and the various things I read that the Russians have been doing here, sabotage, intelligence collection, attacking people, and so on… Fiona Hill may be right in saying we're already at war with Russia. It's a different sort of war, but the hostility, the cyber-attacks, the physical attacks, intelligence work is extensive.”
She also shares her experience of meeting the Russian President 20 years ago following the G8 meeting in Gleneagles:
“We all hoped that the past history of Russia wouldn't prevail, and, at the end of the Soviet Union, we would have a potential partner, and that was one of the reasons why Putin was with us for the G8 in 2005… I met him when he came back to London. But actually we were wrong in that, because Russia is extremely hostile to the West and we've seen it in all sorts of ways… I didn't anticipate that within a year, he'd be ordering the murder on London streets of [Russian dissident Alexander] Litvinenko.”
Listen to the full episode to find out more.
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