View from the Boundary: Richard Moore

You're listening to the TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Our guest is a civil servant, a diplomat, who until last year held one of the most fascinating positions. He's been an ambassador to Turkey, he worked at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, but he spent time as a British intelligence officer. Do we call him a spy, I wonder?

I think that's okay.

Is that okay? Excellent.

I will pass, master Jonathan.

Who's just finished a 5-year spell as Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6. Richard Morse, lovely to meet you. It's been, I mean, it's been in the pipeline, this, for a while.

Yes, I've just been explaining to you, haven't I, off air, that we had a cake baked for you in the shape of Vauxhall Cross, you know, green and sand-colored icing, all done by a brilliant colleague in what is our sort of equivalent of Q Labs, where we make some other wonderful—

So there is Q? You sent us a cake from Q?

I was going to, but it's been eaten twice by the crisis operations room. So I'm sorry about that.

Well, I'm reassured that there is at least an existence of Q.

There absolutely is. In fact, Q, the wonderful Blaise Metrovelli, who was Q, the head of all our technologies, is my successor as C. So she became— she moved from being Q to being C. Strange.

Is that unprecedented, I wonder? Has that happened before? And I also didn't realize— I mean, I assumed that you sort of— you're— because yes, you were C, weren't you? Not like the sort of tropical storms that come through and you— so the next is D or E or whatever. So you're always C. Which is M in James Bond. Exactly. Well, look, more of that in a minute. We're talking cricket first because that's, that's why you're here. And first time— it's not your first time to Lord's, is it? I mean, you're a regular visitor here.

I, I may betray that by the tie I'm wearing, so, uh, yes, yes, I remember. Well observed. Yes, but, uh, yeah, no, I feel her analyzing me, Richard.

Can we just be very careful here?

I'll be very, very careful.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, I've loved cricket ever since, you know, being a kid.. And I can remember my first introduction to international cricket was in Sri Lanka, because my parents were in the days before, I guess, Sri Lanka— Sri Lanka don't just stop being called Ceylon. I mean, it was before it became a Test side, but the MCC sent down a side there. I think Geoffrey Boycott was in it. It was in—

it was soundabout, right on the way to Australia, probably.

Well, it was— no, it was, it was an odd one because it was a diversion. It was a, it was an overly strong side because they were supposed to go to South Africa, and then because of apartheid, you know, right, they were diverted and they went to Sri Lanka, and then they went on bizarrely to Pakistan, but pre-Bangladesh Pakistan. So I think they had quite a torrid time.

That was when the riots were on, the students were rioting and so on. Good Lord. So, so why were you— your dad was in the service?

My dad was there, yeah, my dad was there. He was made cricket attaché for the visit of the MCC, and as a little boy I must have been you know, 5 or 6 at the time.

Yeah, that must have been a real thrill.

It was great.

Yeah, it was great. So if Geoffrey was there, what's your memory of your first real memory of those cricketers coming then?

And well, Geoffrey, uh, I looked at— because inevitably when I knew I was coming on, I went and looked at Wisden, and Geoffrey got a second ball duck. Excellent. And 7, 7 in the second. And they were— they had a— the MCC had a— they had a first innings deficit And to give you an idea, this wasn't baseball. The Sri Lanka cricketer, a chap called Tennakoon, got 100 in 101 overs.

I thought you were going to say balls. No, no, overs. Oh dear. And so was he High Commissioner there?

No, he wasn't. He was a relatively junior official doing management, and he was a real diplomat before. I can see the look almost in your eye, but he was a proper diplomat.

Wasn't there? Yeah, because we do, we still do occasionally, you know, part of a tour is to go along to the High Commissioners and meet, and it's, it's, it's just part of the tour. It's, it's, it's wonderful actually.

I did a posting in Pakistan in the, in the '90s, so, uh, so the England teams came through at the time.

Yes, well, Islamabad High Commission is wonderful.

It's a rare event, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a bar, quite a refuge, real sausages with alcohol. Yes, yes, it is. No, that's fantastic. So Pakistan That was being quite tricky in the '90s.

Yeah, it was before 9/11, so it hadn't become as sort of, you know, the terrorism issues that were not as bad. It was still pretty fraught. I mean, there was a bomb went off just a few weeks after we got there, which damaged bits of the British compound. Right. So yeah, it was there, but you were unlike post-9/11, it wasn't a lockdown, you could travel around. So, you know, I went all over the country and I watched a bit of cricket, and it was of course the '96 World Cup.

Yes, of course. England did not win. Final in Lahore.

Final Lahore, went to the final.

Yes, yes, great game of cricket actually.

It was a great game, and Jayasuriya was sort of bursting onto the scene.

Yes, and Ranatunga was very cunning and chose to bowl first, knowing that Shane Warne couldn't grip the ball under the dew. I remember when we arrived there, all the talk was about whether the lights would stay on, and I think they had 3 solid nights of tests. So there was a joke that no one could plug a toaster in or anything else in Lahore in case they all It was great.

So I played, I played a lot of cricket, um, uh, when I was there. I would, and I played in a team, a wonderfully named team called the Malgala Gentlemen, right? I was the only non-Pakistani in the side. It was just, it was a great way of meeting Pakistani friends.

Yes, I love Pakistan, and we're lucky now, we've been 3 times down the last 4 or 5 years, having not been for years. No, I know, and it's, it's a, it's a wonderful place.

I know there are areas that you can't go, it's fine, but then they play cricket Everywhere. Yes, you know, on the edge of a mountain up in the Dolneras, there'll be someone playing cricket.

Yes, big cricket. But it's kind of a bit of a misunderstood country. I don't know, I've got to be careful what I say, but, but I think as far as us going there, it's a fabulous reception, wonderful welcome. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a warm country for, for us to visit.

Certainly it's like everywhere in the subcontinent, you know, there is almost a quasi-religious element to cricket. I mean, everyone worships cricket. They all play it, they all follow it. Yes, same in India. And yeah, I mean, when there's security issues, it's difficult. I understand that. But I'm glad that we're back, and I'm glad that seems to be more under control.

Yes, and we went back under your watch at MI6. So you were involved in that?

A little bit, because— a little bit, not least because a very good friend of mine was High Commissioner Christian Turner, who's doing the job in Washington. Yes, bless him.

Yes, actually, we saw quite a bit of him. He's a character. Yes, so you are involved in, in, well, not deciding whether it's safe or not, but in sort of the arrangements?

Not, not so much that, but clearly when, when people are trying to work out what the threat picture is, at some point we will, I hope, be contributing to that and, and helping. And when I was, you know, when I, I guess I'm a very, very good friend of, long-term friend of John Carr. Yes, right. So John, when he was Director of Cricket I would occasionally get a phone call saying, "We're thinking of going here," and I was very clear that I wasn't the official voice, but of course you want to help.

Because England cricket team do go to some politically hot spots. We just do because of the way that the Empire and everything was set up and the way that the tours and where cricket is played in the world. So actually security does play quite a big part, particularly in the subcontinent of our tours.

It has to do, doesn't it? It has to do. Having sort of, you're remembering those scenes precisely around Gaddafi Stadium when the Sri Lankans were caught up in a terrorist thing. You never want that to happen. Cricketers don't sign up to be intelligence officers. It's a different risk calculation. They do things on the pitch that I would never do, facing down 90-mile-an-hour bowlers. But, you know, you've got to be sensitive to that and not go when it's it's not sensible to go, but at the same time it means so much when you can.

Yes, but do you feel the responsibility? Do you feel that responsibility of being involved in that sort of decision?

Well, it— as I say, that's a, that's a slightly sort of quirky, odd one, but you are involved in decisions in MI6, and particularly when you, you rise up the ranks and you, and you get to become chief, you are obviously making some quite tricky decisions. I mean, in my time I had to make decisions about people— did people stay in Kyiv or not? And, and those sort of things. Yes, they're tough decisions.

And from a cricketing sense, where are you getting that information from? How can you be as certain as you can be that England cricketers would not be a target in Pakistan, for instance?

You can never be 100% sure of anything in this world, but you can, I think, give people some sense of a) what the threat is, whether the groups are active who might want to do harm, and you can give a sense of how capable the local authorities are about dealing with the threat. And it's those two calculations you're making, I think. And you've got— I mean, the ECB has got some very experienced security people who, you know, got great links in.

Reg. Yeah, Reg Dickerson. You've probably come across.

I've met Reg.

Yeah. And I was looking at your notes. So you came here and you saw Australia here in '75, is it?

I think so. Yeah, I was trying to work it out. '74 or '75.

No, it was '75. And it was It was only a 4-test series, but you see, interestingly, I was fired by the previous Ashes test match here, actually, which was Bob Massey bowling swinging. So you've got Lilian Tomo now. Yeah, and you sat here as—

I did, and I sat— I don't know which side, whether it was grandstand or on the other side, but yeah, I do. And I remember even as an 11-year-old, I suppose I was at the time, watching, and When Tomo bowled, you just, you literally, even with 12-year-old eyes, you couldn't see the ball. And Marsh was somewhere in the pavilion. I mean, it was astonishing.

Yes, and Lillie. I mean, they were very different, weren't they? I mean, Tomo was violent.

How bits of them didn't fall off, they eventually did, didn't they? But I mean, they, yes, that sort of loose sling action. Yeah, and then Lillie off that long run and the gold medallion Yeah, I don't know, I don't know if he got into the medallion stage, and he certainly— it still doesn't—

hair, didn't it?

Yeah, do you remember that sort of sweatband?

It was so inspiring. I, I loved that Australian team, although you sort of brought up not to, in a way. And so many of them have become, you know, good friends, actually. I mean, Ian Chappell I saw during the— dear Rodney Marsh, we've lost now, but he was a really good friend, you know. And it's, it's interesting in, in this job that I've been doing, where you get the chance, you know, from those childhood days of actually not just meeting people who were heroes, but actually, you know, getting to know them.

And of course, it's wonderful. It's one of the privileges of doing this, and occasionally you do get a chance to meet people. I remember I was able, in a sort of gap, I was able to get to the Barbados Test. What's the last time but one we were there? Would, um, I want to say 2018, '19, when we, when we were over in the, in the wind.

Yes, was that, that very, very, very flat?

It's the one where we got absolutely Pummel.

Oh right, okay, they got 700 and something.

Exactly, and the skipper got a double century.

That's right, yes.

But so, but I spent, it's the only time I've spent, I've been able to spend all 4 days watching a Test. That was wonderful. But I was invited by the president of the Barbadian Cricket Association to come in and use his box, and so I had lunch every day with Charlie Griffiths and Les Hall. Yes, great characters. And Everton Weeks just before he died.

Yes. Oh, well, that's special.

I had returned to my 12-year-old self. I was just sort of wonderful. Yes. Wes Hall did it. At some point, one of our fast bowlers was being carted back over the head for six, and Wes Hall sort of declares to the group around, I think, that he was never hit back over his head for six. And you think, yeah, excuse my language, but no, no, probably not, sir Wes.

No, there's no helmets, and you'd, you know, They were great characters, those, those old West Indian, West Indian cricketers. So, so Tommo and Lily, that was the game that you saw in which David Steele made his debut. Yeah, came down the dressing room steps famously, and of course went down a level too far and ended up with the gents, which is a story which he, he dines out on regularly. But he came out, I mean, he eventually emerged and scored, and scored 50. That's right. And Tommo Tom agreed to him and said yes. He said, oh my word, it's Groucho Marx, he said, as he walked, as he walked past him. But that was, yeah, that was sort of childhood dream stuff with, with David Steele, wasn't it? I mean, from nowhere.

Absolutely. It's great. It was a great head, wasn't he? I mean, when he played.

Yes. No, he was, and, and, and such a character. And I was intrigued as well to see that you played your, your last game, it says here, was for— you played for the MI6 I did.

Team. Our team.

But they play under an alias.

They do.

And, and that's— and I just conjured up all sorts of crazy images, doesn't it?

Yes, they've got a very, very elite fixture list. Yes. Which I'm not going to reveal to you.

So, so it's a team of spies playing.

Yes. There are some, there are some nifty cricketers, uh, in, in that. Yes. And I, I mean, I first played for them in, I don't know, in '88. When I still had a sort of little bit of sting in my medium pacers, right? And I played for them last summer. I had to, one of the sort of, I don't know, things you've got to do as you leave as chief. I had to go and have one more. Yes, go out with them. And it nearly killed me because I made that mistake. I scored about, I scored about, so I was going quite well on a 30-odd, but that meant I was in for way too long, right, for my body. And so literally for days afterwards I couldn't move. And I was out because I turned for a second run. And I think 40 years earlier, I might have come somewhere, you know, half— I might have made it to half the pitch. But I was still only about 5 yards in, the bails were off.

Well, there you go, advancing years. But it's this thought of a team of intelligence officers, stroke spies, whatever you want to call them. Presumably you all know that you're all— you're all intelligence officers.

Yes, yes, there are limits to the subtleties.

But you're not— but you're not— no one else does. No, I mean, when you, when you hand over your, your Walter PPK, take it in your hand, that with my sunglasses. No, the holster under the white.

So all of that, I can see there's a whole image here going on. That's fascinating. It deflects the blows.

Yeah, it's a sort of an early—

yes, there are, there are, there are sides probably all around southern England who are completely unaware of who they're actually playing. And now they're all going— the whole point is all pile of slightly obscure sides that everyone's going to look at them now. Yes, they're probably— and they won't be.

Well, I suppose you wouldn't have had your own ground, that's a start, was it? Were you a nomadic team?

We were definitely nomadic. Yes, no ground at Vauxhall Cross.

Did you call each other by your proper names when you changed the bowl?

You are really probing. You're really proud. Fascinating.

It's such a fascinating state of affairs.

We took on the names of Test cricketers. I'm just making this up now.

But that whole question of the subterfuge, you know, on the one hand, yes, of course it does seem funny, but of course it's deadly serious.

It has its moments. Yes. It is there for a serious reason.

So, I mean, in effect, has your life until whatever you did reveal yourself, and which was that— do you reveal yourself when you actually become chief, and until that point you're under the radar?

Absolutely. The chief is the only person in the service who is avowed to use the term of art. So everyone else is still undercover. Now look, I mean, realistically, um, uh, we— I may have a couple of colleagues in the box. You know, there are— you get to a certain stage in your, uh, in your career, and you know, you've been around a while, inevitably you've probably worked with other foreign services, so you, you're not so worried about it. But when you're in your first 5, 10 years of your career as an operational officer, yeah, you do take it seriously, and you, you, you need to not show out. And if you're in places which are— you just put yourself back into Islamabad in the mid-'90s when I was an operational officer there, then, you know, you— there are certain threats. It's probably lowers your threat if people don't know that you're an MI6 officer, and if they do, they might want to do you harm.

So what did you say you were?

Oh, I've said I was in the Foreign Office. I was working in the High Commission, right?

And that's, you know, that's So it's sort of a life of deception in a way.

It is. And look, you know, it's— you can't go around, you can't tell your mates that, you know, on the weekend at a cricket match or something, what you do. And so you've got to have a certain degree of self-containment about that, and you've got to take satisfaction from the work you do, the mission that you're on, and the fact you of course can talk to your colleagues you just can't talk about it to your family. And some of your family will know, right?

I mean, did your wife know?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. And Maggie— Maggie and I were already married when I joined, which— right, we didn't have that rather complicated thing that people do who may meet and fall in love. And of course, you can't tell the other person what you do for a living initially, until you're fairly confident they're the one.

Um, and they could still go wrong. Well, it could, you know, but you've revealed yourself though.

You have, and it's a one-way door, isn't it? Once you've said what you do for a living, you can't take it back. You can't sort of say, no, you misheard me, I said I work for MFI, or whatever the thing is.

Yes, so in that circumstance, I'm just thinking it's probably best if it's all broke up fairly amicably, I guess, if you are going to—

Yeah, I think we would encourage people not to have violently painful breakups. No, I think you're probably right. But no, look, most people a very, um, that stuff happens. But, um, you know, those, those members of your family, it's, it's your— you are putting a responsibility on them. It is a peculiar thing of our, of our world, because if you, if you bring siblings or, uh, parents, and then eventually your kids— at what point do you tell your kids?

Absolutely. What you do? So what did you do? You have got kids, presumably?

I do. I, I, they The story of telling my son is unprintable, and I can't actually because of his reaction.

But he was shocked.

You know, I will tell part of the story. We built up to this, and we were on holiday, I remember, in New Zealand, and Jaco must have been about 14 when we thought it was time. There was a slightly unworthy thing, because Jaco, he's now in his late 30s or mid-30s, he won't mind me saying so, but he was quite sort of He's quite a stroppy teenager. Of course, I thought, you know, maybe this would suddenly— he'd get some respect for his dad if I told him. So, you know, which betrays a complete lack of knowledge of teenage boy psychology. Anyway, we sat him down, and Maggie and I were a bit nervous. It was odd about telling him.

So what did he think you'd done up to this point then?

Oh, he wouldn't have thought much, I would think. But I'm in Foreign Office, not particularly—

worked at a desk—

undistinguished diplomat. Yeah, uh, so we sat him down, but then we made the mistake of looking quite serious because we were actually quite nervous about this moment. And then I could look— this— I saw this look of utter panic in his eyes because he said— I think he thought we were about to tell him we were getting divorced. So, so at which point, I've been trained to deliver this pitch. Yes, you know, and it just sort of spewed out in some way. And, uh, I think he was, uh, very relieved.

Was he?

It wasn't what I think. I mean, there was a sort of string of of, um, un-14-year-old, like, oaths, right?

Where I'm saying, right, okay, so we were a bit better with my daughter.

We didn't fluff our lines.

Yeah, but friends, friends, I mean, who must have had, you know, lifelong friends.

Yeah.

When they found out that you hadn't deceived them, that's wrong, but when, when you, when they found out that actually you were completely different, or you're doing, you know, you are what you are. Yeah. What was their reaction to that?

Look, I think people don't think they've been deceived. They kind of understand the logic of it and why you would need to do it. And for most people, you know, the distinction between MI6 and the Foreign Office is not entirely clear in their heads anyhow. So I'm not sure it made that much difference to friends. And also, as I, as I got older and as I, you know, I'd been posted in places like Malaysia, I would think half the British expatriates in Kuala Lumpur knew who the spook was in the embassy.

And so it's, you know, at that point, yeah, I was going to use that word.

Yeah, there you go. I mean, at that point, if you've been friends with somebody for 25 years, it's probably okay just to check in with the office and say, do you mind if I, if I tell this? I mean, uh, you know, uh, I've already mentioned John Carr being a very, very close friend of mine. I'm John's known.

So he knew what you—

yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's extraordinary, extraordinary living, isn't it? I mean, did you feel, uh, in, in danger doing it? I mean, were you looking over your shoulder every move that someone actually is That someone's spying on you, actually, because part of your job, I guess, is to obviously discover who's spying for other countries in this country. So therefore, people in those countries are looking for who's spying for us.

Yes, that seems entirely clear.

Yes. Um, um, did you feel you were under surveillance yourself?

You are occasionally. I mean, you don't want to overstate, uh, the dangers. I mean, they are there, and occasionally you'll be in certain environments where you might face that, but it's not a sort of day-in, day-out thing. It's really clear, and there are lots of people in the service doing really valuable roles who are not in the— in those roles. Maybe they're technologists, or, or they're an analyst type person back, back home. But yeah, it will be there. And if you are, if you are running operations overseas, then by definition you're trying to develop a clandestine relationship with someone, and then you're trying to run them in place while they can provide the secrets that you—

so that's, that's how you operate? You, you go to a country wherever you are, and you, you would try and get somebody, a local on side, as it were, who you could—

it wouldn't— it might be local, it might be, um, you know, it might be a Russian-identified intelligence officer in their embassy, and that particular—

and you'd work on that person?

Yeah, you try and develop a relationship and see whether you could— how do you do that? Whether you could find something in them which meant that they were prepared to come and work with us.

Yeah, the TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. And at what point would you reveal to them what—

who you are? Well, that's a, that's a, a great sort of moment of art, is judging the right moment to do that, when you think you are going to maximize your chances of, of them saying yes, because they've learned to trust you and trust your professionalism, trust you as a decent human being. And that they might say yes. Because obviously, if you do pitch them and you do say who you work for and you ask them to help you and they're not prepared to, they probably will go and tell their own authorities, at which point you're gone. Well, your cover's blown, potentially. Yeah, yeah. Well, your cover is definitely blown, and you may be going, going home at that point. So, you know, you judge it.

How do you, how do you select that person? How do you actually think that's the person I'm going to try?

Well, people, you know, there's a bit of science to it nowadays. You can imagine that data is really important. You've got to try and identify— these are people, remember, who you are going to ask to run some serious risks. I mean, at the, at the best, you're going to be in a place of great embarrassment if it's revealed that you have been helping MI6, or you might lose your job. And at the most extreme, if you're an Iranian official, then I'm afraid the results of being caught are can be terminal. So in those— in that environment, given the risks that they're going to be running, they've got to have a very strong motivation to want to help. And yes, that can be, you know, there's all kinds of reasons why people decide to come and help you. And some, some people do it out of— because they are dismayed by what their own country is doing. So, you know, take— I've spoken about this publicly— take something like the invasion of Ukraine by Putin in February '22, there are lots of Russians who, who were deeply opposed to that, who may have been within the system, who were dismayed. So we made a great effort to try and make sure they understood that they'd be welcome if they could find a way to us. We would look after them.

Yes. And that involves people being there, your people being there, does it?

There's a limit to how far I can go on all this. Obviously we've got people based overseas, but we've also got ways— I'm— when I was Chief, we announced, uh, a kind of dark website that people could go on to where, you know, they could be able to offer their services, if you like, in a way that we could protect. And then we would find a way of contacting them and taking it forward.

It is extraordinary. I suppose money too, I suppose. Is it money talk?

Is it— yeah, money is sometimes, uh, sometimes an element of it, but, um, it's rarely everything because, you know, you can imagine if it's just money, then then the loyalty, the tie to you is going to be more limited, I think. So, you know, you're usually looking for stronger reasons than that.

Back to cricket for a moment, Richard. I was reading that you fielded. I did. For Oxford University. So this is—

I'm looking at my skipper over in the corner.

Well, unfortunately, he doesn't have any recollection of this. He's rather relieved.

It was a bit of a one-sided event. I am going to be starstruck. I mean, it's nice, I think, for Vic to have people who are starstruck. Yes, by him, particularly in his playing days.

It's a rare event.

I was once at an evening, Vic, I don't know where you were doing a sort of evening thing, and you were introduced by a Sun correspondent who said something very unkind, I think.

Sun correspondent?

Did you get 83 wickets for England, or how many wickets did you get for England?

Well, in Test matches, far fewer. No, not as many as that.

He made some aspersion to Sorry?

You got 83 runs.

There was some rather tart comment about getting all these wickets with the one that went on with the arm.

Oh well, they all went on. They always went on with them. So explain what happened here. So how do you— how have you come across Victor?

So this comes back to John Carr again, who at the time was playing for Oxford, a very fine player, went on to play for Middlesex.

Very unorthodox player, he had a very unusual Well, he moved in and out. I mean, he got a brilliant hundred against us.

Yeah, at Oxford he had a perfectly conventional thing, and then he didn't get any runs, so he then adopted, didn't you, sort of with one leg splayed towards the leg.

That's right, it was the umpire at square leg. It was very unusual.

Very good slipper, and it's a good player. And at one year, remarkably, do you remember, he was top of the first-class averages. And he, because, and when Lara got his whatever it was, the big one, yeah, the big 501. So Lara was— BC Lara was second in the first-class averages, and Carr, because I think he scored something like 180 runs over 6 weeks without getting out, snuck in ahead of him at the end of it. So it was John, John was, was in those days called honorary secretary, and it was his job to get the 12th man. And so very kindly he offered me a day at the park, so off I went. And Oxford had an injured player, so I ended up fielding for them. And then Somerset having knocked something like 371 or something in the usual way against the undergraduates. I don't think— I think Roebuck was skipper, and I think Roebuck just didn't really fancy fielding against a bunch of undergraduates, so I got drafted in.

Victor was often the stand-in captain.

Outstanding.

Yeah, no, well, that's That's a pretty decent standard though, to go out and—

It's very good. If you look at that game in Wisdon, you will unfortunately find nothing, nothing at all, sub on the thing. I think I had a couple of shies at the stump and that was it.

We had a famous court sub. Do you remember Jamie Salmon, the rugby player? Oh, right. Well, he turned up because he was a big mate of Chris Cowdery's. We were playing against Kent, somebody got injured, Jamie Salmon was around, pulled some whites on, went out and fielded and took a catch in the deep. So there is a court sub. For the, for Leicestershire against Kent at Grace Road, which was actually caught by Jamie Salmon, which isn't very good.

Anyhow, I have to say that Victor was extremely kind, you know, to a young undergraduate.

Where were you fielding?

No, he didn't, he didn't.

Short leg?

I wasn't running from end to end. No, he put me on the, he put me at extra cover or something, you know. They had got 370 for 1 at the stage.

I don't think they were too concerned about keeping the runs down. Are you a traditional cricket lover? I mean, are we talking, you know, Test matches for you, or do like the T20s and the colorful stuff and the Hundred and all those sorts of things?

I like cricket in all its forms, and I do enjoy the short form of the game, and I am absolutely a supporter of it for bringing people into the game. Completely get that. But no, it's Test cricket through and through.

Yes.

And I will— it's one of the things to explain, you know, having spent a lot of my time talking to foreigners, it is impossible to explain why you would want to watch a slow-scoring— not that we have much of that in recent years— but slow-scoring Test match, and you watch them ball after ball and things. But I do, I love it.

You sort of get engrossed in it, don't you? I mean, you're lucky. I mean, you mentioned that 4 days you could watch. I, I really admire people who come and watch one day, like everyone here today. They come on the Saturday, which is the third day of the game. So how do you, how do you keep up with the game, and how do you follow it after you've had your one day of actually being there?

Yeah, well, I guess you have telly, don't you? And you have the radio, and you've follow it and avidly go and watch the highlights and all the rest of it. So I've struggled to get more than the odd day at the cricket in recent years. I'm rather hoping that I'll see a bit more of it.

Yes, what have you thought of England recently and the way that they've been playing? Has it frustrated you? Did the Ashes frustrate you?

The Ashes did frustrate me, it's hard not to, because I think we all got our hopes up, didn't we? Yes, I mean, even though statistically we shouldn't have done, but That's a good side, it's a good side, and they went there with high hopes. And so yeah, like everyone else, a bit frustrated. I'm not expert enough to comment on preparation or lack of it and all the other stuff that we can have a view though.

You can have a view.

I can have a view, and I have lots of ignorant views about cricket, but I perhaps shouldn't have to share them with all your listeners. But yeah, it is frustrating, but you know, overall, have I really, really enjoyed the last period, um, uh, you know, under McCullum and Stokes. Yeah, I absolutely have.

I've loved it. It's a very exciting mode. There's been soaring, soaring highs and depressions. Yes.

And I sat, you know, I sat over there watching the World Cup final. That's the most excited I've ever been on the planet.

And that was a day.

Oh, what a day. Amazing. So yeah, yeah, no, I enjoy what they do, and there's some real talented cricketers Yes, yes.

Well, I think we've seen one. Gay, did you see him?

Ah, I saw the highlights briefly. Yes, uh, looks very well organized, doesn't he?

Yes, no, he does. Right, I'm taking you back to your, your, your day job again now, uh, Richard. So because it— there's one love about this job, you get the chance to actually talk to people about what they do. And I mean, is, is it glamorous? Is, is being a spy a glamorous occupation, or is Ian Fleming sort of jazzed it up to ridiculous extents? I mean, is there any semblance of or resemblance between you and your profession and Roger Moore, your namesake.

Yes, I know. I've been, by the way, over many, many years, decades, I've been called Roger.

You've been Roger.

I have been. I nearly said something I shouldn't have done, but I have been, I have had the word Roger applied to me. And it's really funny because people do it completely without realizing and carry on. They've just, they've just seen, and I have this rule, I never put them right.

Chuckle inwardly.

I once got a Christmas card addressed to me in Malaysia when I was the head of station there in the period after 9/11 from the local Malaysian intelligence service, which— hey, I was supposed to be preserving some kind of COVID but they handed in a card at the front desk which said, "Mr. Roger Moore, MI6 representative, British High Commissioner, Kuala Lumpur." That's brilliant.

But that's superb, isn't it?

Okay, absolutely. Brilliantly. Yeah, so I can't match the late and great Roger Moore's suavity. Does not— we don't go around much wearing DJs and doing parties. We do occasionally, but no, much more of it is— and this is where the Bond thing is— that the Bond thing is marvelous, wouldn't it? If you were I'm now kind of in the private sector doing advisory stuff these days, and I meet lots of businesses who would die for the brand recognition that Bond has given MI6. So it reaches all the corners of the planet. Yes. It means that you don't have to explain where you're from. You know, they kind of get it. So, so that's very powerful. But, you know, Bond is a kind of loner. Deeply, certainly in the early Bond, deeply sexist. Yes. All kind of whole pile of stuff that goes with that. And that's not how— what we are, you know.

We're— you're not loners.

No, we're not.

Even though you're carrying out this life of subterfuge.

No, because you're— because with your colleagues, of course, you have this astonishing esprit de corps. So we're, we're massively— I mean, it's teamwork. Yes. You know, it's a good analogy, cricket, isn't it? Because it's such a team sport, and yet at the moment it is a battle between bat and ball. One batter, one bowler. So yes, in that moment it might be you and the, and the agent that you are cultivating or perhaps running, but you've got this massive team behind you. You've got the support staff, you've got all of that going on, you've got the other, the other people on the field who are all playing complementary roles. So it's intensely teamworky. And, um, and with— and one of the things I've— again, I've spoken about this, and my I'll tell you who has said this more eloquently than anyone else. It was my, uh, my predecessor, Alex Younger, right? So, so recently lost, um, earlier this week. It's a deep, very close friend. I'm very— as you can slightly tell, I'm still rather upset by it. But, you know, Alex made this point that we're not like the opposition, that the people in MI6 are deeply moral, deeply ethical.

You do play by the rules.

Absolutely do. You have to— everything we do has to be in accordance with British law.

That's an act we have, even if others aren't, even if the people that you're working against, if you like, probably aren't.

No, they're absolutely not. If you, you know, look at, look at what happened in Salisbury. That was Russian intelligence. They were prepared to use a military nerve-grade agent on the streets of Salisbury, and they threw it away. And they, you know, that perfume file that sadly was picked up and killed Dawn Sturgis, it could have wiped out a school. So there's, there's a recklessness and an amorality there which we, you know, we don't have. We, you know, we, we're, we're Democrats and we believe in democracy and we are helping to protect democracy. And if you stoop, as Alex said, if you stoop to using the methods of the opposition, then you become like them. You've lost— you have lost the plot.

You've lost any kind of Even if it comes down to the nth degree of absolutely kind of life or death or whatever, however serious it may be, you'd still play by the rules?

The end does not justify the means. It really doesn't in this space. So clearly, you know, there are very difficult issues you have to confront. There are partners overseas that you might have to work with on a counter-terrorism operation who don't have the same values as we do, and they don't treat people as well as we do. But if you are going to work with those types of partners, which sometimes you have to do to keep Britain safe, then you do it in a really carefully circumscribed environment with assurances that people will be treated well, and you check up on the assurances. And if you don't get the assurance, you stop the work. It's as— it is as simple as that. And you've got a whole pile of very senior judges looking at— you can be a, a young desk officer in their late, you know, in their early mid to late 20s, and a senior judge will come and look at what you've done., you know, months later in the cold light of day. So yeah, it's pretty—

with hindsight and everything else.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's really inculcated in. Do we, do we make mistakes? Of course we do. But is there a really strong ethical compass in MI6? Absolutely there is. And we recruit for that.

Well, that's my next question. Yeah, about recruiting. I mean, how— if the people listening now, I quite fancy being a spy, um, right in, do you? I mean, how do you, how do you become a spy?

So you, nowadays, you, you You literally apply online. We've got a website and you go on.

MI6 has a website?

Yeah, absolutely.

Something that's been a secret thing for, for how many years?

Yeah, absolutely. We've taken some steps in recent years, obviously, to try and make ourselves a bit more accessible. So we get, you know, people of talent from all across the UK, all regions, all ethnicities, etc., to come and join us. And so you apply and we obviously have ways of keeping that, you know, secure. You apply and if you get through the fairly rigorous process, um, you, you can join. And, and, you know, you'd be surprised if you went into the building, you would, you would of course find a whole bunch of very ordinary people doing extraordinary things. You know, they're not— we're not kind of— we haven't got sort of three eyes, and, you know, it's very normal people.

But, um, yeah, but if you, if you say the three criteria then to be a— to apply to be a spy, what what do you need to have?

Well, you've got to remember you've got very differing types of people. So you may have, you know, people like me who came in to be an operational officer, a case officer, actually there to recruit and run people. But you may have other people who come in to do more kind of back office jobs or jobs involving analytical work or processing intelligence. And you may have technologists. Now, you're not going to have the same necessary— you don't need You know, the kind of interpersonal skills that you might need at one level, you know, for a technologist, it's lovely to have them, but I— we really need them to be brilliant technologists. And so, so you've got that variety. The thing that they all have in common, I think, is a sense of being really grounded. You've got to be self-aware, and you've got to have a— you, you can't have ego. Ego blinds you if you're going to make judgments about another human being and make those very consequential judgments about whether or not they're prepared to help you. If you have your own really rather overlarge ego, that will just block out the sensing and the empathy you need in order to make that. So pretty low ego people.

Yeah, it's, it's extraordinary. And that ability to just kind of be somebody else in a way, sometimes to have that facade you have.

But it's a bit like, um, like actors, you know, they're on a stage, uh, and they are pretending to be, by definition, to be playing a role on the on stage. But they— you often say, don't you, about the great actors, that they can convey authenticity. Yes, they're authentic. And so a good MI6 officer may well be not quite what they seem on the surface, but there will be an authenticity there that the other person has to make the human connection with. Because if you come across as fake, no one's going to trust you.

But you get trained as well. I mean, I actually trained to, to be able to of course, analyze somebody to that degree.

We put a lot of effort into helping people to think through this stuff, to be the best of themselves, to, uh, yeah, we do a lot of role-playing in this where either can be actors or they, they can be more senior officers or retired officers or come back and sort of play a, you know, we'll set them up in a scenario and then we'll test how well they react. And of course we'll throw the odd googly at them and, you know, we'll see how they get on in responding to it. Yeah.

Is the world a more dangerous place now than when you came in? What, 2020 you started, didn't you? Yeah. With everything that's been going on, does it feel more volatile to you?

Hasn't got any better, has it, sadly, and it is more volatile. People often ask this, you know, is this the most dangerous point since the Second World War, or are we in World War III? And I don't like that latter thing. I don't think I think that's a bit sort of alarmist, but there were probably more dangerous points during the Cold War, you know, the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Berlin Blockade or some of the things we now know around the early '80s. There were very dangerous points where there was a near miss on some of the nuclear— that, you know, that's a more dangerous moment, if you like. But I think in terms of being disordered and not having some of the guardrails that were there and for most of the post-war period, even at the height of the Cold War. At the moment, that doesn't seem to be there. And we, you know, we're therefore dealing with multiple crises at the same time, whether it's Ukraine or recently Iran, or, you know, how do we more strategically think about China and its place in the world and how we're going to relate to that. All of this stuff is happening, you know, all at once without too much of the international— I mean, ultimately in the international system, it's the United Nations Security Council that can call things out and help to guide you to safer waters, and it does not operate at the moment.

Yeah, well, I mean, I must mention Ukraine. I guess I don't want to get too heavy on this, but Putin and I mean, you know, just ordinary people living here in the UK, I mean, should we feel safe entirely? I mean, is this man someone who's going to press the red button suddenly and blow everything up? What's What's your thought of that?

I don't think I'm in the sort of, you know, Dr. Strangelove sort of scenario here with him. I don't think Putin has ever seriously contemplated the use of nuclear weapons over Ukraine because, you know, apart from the absolute, you know, that is such a massive taboo that he would be breaking with all the potential horrible consequences of it. But he knows that would be the end of him. So he's not That's not the issue, but it is a very serious issue. We are now, you know, 4 years in, 4 and a bit years into this. Russia has been in Ukraine now for longer than it fought in the Second World War. It's an astonishing thing. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. And, you know, we need it to end, but it needs to end on a basis which is fair to Ukraine. And thus far, Putin has not seen, has not been put under enough pressure enough to bring him to the table ready to do it.

You think he should be under more pressure?

Oh yes, of course he should. And by the way, pressures are starting to rise, not least because the Ukrainians are being extraordinarily innovative.

Did you expect that, by the way, of Ukraine?

Uh, we, we work really closely with Ukraine, really, because we were caught napping, all of us, in 2014 when he, you know, remember the little green man and the takeover of Crimea and all that. And there was no reaction. So after 2014, we and the Americans really invested into building up the relationship with the Ukrainians, and that paid off, I think, in late '21 and early '22. But they've gone on to be extraordinarily innovative and what they're able to do with drones now. There was an occasion on the battlefield recently where Ukrainian land drones took the surrender of a small group of Russian soldiers. So there was no Ukrainian infantrymen in that space. These vehicles went in, obviously were able to broadcast to the troops to ask them to surrender. They surrendered, they got on the vehicles and they were pulled out. That is astonishing. That's happening. So Ukraine is doing well. And at home, the pressures on Putin are mounting. And that— you remember, he, you know, he had his— he always has this annual parade 9th of May, Victory Day. It's always a massive— dictators love to show their toys off. And the fact that there was hardly anything there was a big moment. And I think we'll look back at that 5, 10 years' time. We'll think that may have been the moment when things started to, to slide for Putin.

And how do relations work the other side of the Atlantic then? Let's face it, we have something of a maverick in charge.

I thought I was the diplomat.

I mean, does that Does that affect, you know, what your job was? I mean, the actual— the CIA, which is what kind of the equivalent, isn't it? Yeah. If you've got someone like that in charge, yeah, how does that affect things? Any big statements, crazy statements, wild statements, do you just kind of ignore them, or how does that relationship work?

Well, you know, Donald Trump is the President of the United States, so wild though they may sometimes be, or those words of his Vice President. Yes. But they're a fact, and it's quite clear that there are some tensions in the Western alliance that weren't there before. There were some underlying causes for that which, frankly, are on the Europeans. You know, we freeloaded on the Americans on defense, really, for decades, and it's right that we should put that right. But I think I can reassure you that the intelligence relationship is it's so embedded into the DNA of both sides of the Atlantic, and it's embedded in the DNA partly because we've been doing it for decades together, partly there's a lot of trust that's built up, but mostly it's not a sentimental relationship. It's, uh, it's done to keep our respective countries safe, and that job is still there to be done. So I think the relationship on the intelligence field is, is really still in good shape.

Richard, thank you. I've really enjoyed— I mean, I could chat to you for ages, so thank you, thank you Thank you so much for coming. We finally made it.

Now, this has been a little boy's dream. Well, so thank you for letting me on.

Well, I have a Christmas card still at home from a couple of years ago signed by C, which I showed off over the whole of Christmas, which is fabulous. I'm so glad you've come. Thank you. We finally got there, even though, yes, the cake was devoured a couple of years ago. I'm so sorry. Enjoy your quarter time, I suppose. Is it quarter now for you?

Well, I'm here this afternoon.

Yeah, so you can enjoy the cricket and Great, thank you so much. Thanks a lot, lovely to have met you. The TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. So much sport today, but all the goals as they go in up and down the league.

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