It's not just that they talk very openly and frankly about some of the situations they

have had to deal with in the past - a bomb inside a photocopier landing into a UK
airport; an agent in Yemen who infiltrated a terrorist organisation and ended up being
singled out to take part in a suicide bombing; some of the moral issues they have to
weigh up, and how mistakes get made, with Eliza Manningham-Buller very critical of
the whole Stakeknife operation which was in the headlines recently. "Disgraceful."
It is more that they give terrific insight into some of the big challenges facing the
world today, and do not shirk from giving some strong opinions.

It won't make comfortable listening for Sir Richard Dearlove, who was head of MI6 at
the time of the Iraq war and who they clearly felt got too close to the politicians, just
as they thought we in Number 10 got too close to him.
The job of the head of MI6, says Sir John, is not to "rush to the side of the Prime Minister"
with intelligence updates. His ex-MI5 counterpart goes further, saying that whilst politicians
rightly have oversight of the security services,