Description

Book Synopsis

Using newly available government records, private papers, and documents obtained through Freedom of Information, this book tells the secret story of UK security vetting from 1914 to the present. Although Britain avoided American-style red-baiting and McCarthy-like witch-hunts, successive UK governments have, like their Five Eyes' allies, implemented security procedures to protect government, defence and industry from so-called subversives' and fellow travellers'.

Officially, from 1948 the British government applied political tests to civil servants, a process extended to character defects' in the early 1950s with the introduction of positive vetting'. However, an unofficial purge had taken place for much longer, facing political backlashes as an infringement of civil liberties' and suppression of free speech. Although it's been argued that Britain's secret purge had little impact, this study looks at the experiences of those removed from the secret state', those LGBT

The Secret History of UK Security Vetting from 1909 to the Present

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    A Hardback by Daniel Lomas

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      Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
      Publication Date: 12/01/2025
      ISBN13: 9781350234505, 978-1350234505
      ISBN10:

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Using newly available government records, private papers, and documents obtained through Freedom of Information, this book tells the secret story of UK security vetting from 1914 to the present. Although Britain avoided American-style red-baiting and McCarthy-like witch-hunts, successive UK governments have, like their Five Eyes' allies, implemented security procedures to protect government, defence and industry from so-called subversives' and fellow travellers'.

      Officially, from 1948 the British government applied political tests to civil servants, a process extended to character defects' in the early 1950s with the introduction of positive vetting'. However, an unofficial purge had taken place for much longer, facing political backlashes as an infringement of civil liberties' and suppression of free speech. Although it's been argued that Britain's secret purge had little impact, this study looks at the experiences of those removed from the secret state', those LGBT

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