November 16, 2025 • 42 mins
For almost 40 years, Richard Moore was a career spy in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. Only his closest friends and family knew what he did for a living. When he was appointed chief of the agency in 2020, that changed: The name of the person in the top role is the only one made public.
In his first broadcast interview since leaving his post in September 2025, Moore talks to Mishal Husain about managing China, the psychology of Vladimir Putin and why spies shouldn’t expect recognition.
03:00 - “I certainly haven’t left the world in a better place than I found it”
05:02 - China as an “opportunity and a threat”
07:20 - UK’s China spy scandal
09:44 China should “get their embassy” in London
10:22 - Getting the “tap on the shoulder” at Oxford University
14:16 - Telling your children you’re a spy
16:28 - What is spycraft really like?
22:00 - Intelligence work post 9/11
28:15 - “Putin has no intention of doing a deal”
33:46 - Strikes on Venezuela
40:00 - Life on the outside
Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS
You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview
Contact The Mishal Husain Show mishalshow@bloomberg.net
Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I left the job after five years that I certainly
haven't left the world in a better place than I
found it, and I'm lucky that wasn't in my job description.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Richard Moore, spy, British Intelligence chief and now in his
first broadcast interview since stepping down, taking us into a
world of secrets.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What is the job of the chief of them? I say,
it's to serve a government of the day within the law,
and you provide truth to power and sometimes tell them
things I really really don't want to hear, particularly if
it's a Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
From Bloomberg Weekend. This is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
Michelle Hussein. When I was growing up, my parents had
a friend, a British diplomat in the United Arab Emirates
where we lived. This was someone they liked and respected
and kept in touch with as his work took him
(01:05):
from one place to another. Only they worried about his career.
They wondered why he was never appointed a British ambassador
until one day we heard his name on the radio
because he was being appointed as chief of Britain's six
The secret Intelligence Service with the code name C. At
(01:26):
that point we realized there was nothing to worry about.
He had never been an ordinary diplomat, and in many ways,
that story, that double life, is also the story of
my guest today, Richard Moore. For nearly four decades, his
world was espionage. He was in MI six, the agency
(01:48):
most people know or think they know through James Bond,
but his career was the real life version. It was
all about countries or groups that would wish Britain harm
and people that he could spot and recruit that he
hoped would help keep it safe. Now that he's stepped
down after five years in the job, he's been talking
(02:11):
to me. You'll hear the story of how his career
began with a tap on the shoulder, the moment he
told his teenage children the truth about what he did
for a living and about values, challenges, responsibility, and risk
from Russia to China and Venezuela to the United States. Welcome,
(02:36):
Thank you for doing this, Richard. Until six weeks ago,
your daily work involved reading highly classified intelligence, and I
wonder if therefore I could start with the here and
now and your perception of the world, what you see
as you look around the world today that me and
most people watching or listening to this my Nazi.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Thank you, Rachelle. It's lovely to be here. As I reflect,
yes a few weeks on, I think we're in an
extraordinarily contested international environment. I don't think in thirty eight
years of being an intelligence officer and a diplomat, I've
seen it less well ordered. There's just an extraordinary number
of loose ends, if you like, on the international scene,
and we might talk about some of those in a
(03:19):
bit more detail, like Ukraine or what happens next in
Gaza or over Iran. There are so many of these,
and unfortunately the way in which relationships have broken down
between leading powers, particularly following Russian behavior in Ukraine, but
also a difficult relationship and utterly between Washington and Beijing.
(03:40):
Some of the tramlines that we were used to in
the years after nineteen forty five are not really there
to manage some of this contestation. So one thing I've
said is I left the job after five years that
I certainly haven't left the world in a better place
than I've found it, and I'm lucky that wasn't in
my job description.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Contested means more dangerous. We should be clear.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
There's definitely dangers in the world as we look at them,
and they can suddenly loom out of the mist at
you and.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The fact that you said that relationships fraying is a
part of this, and you mentioned that the relationship between
Washington and Beijing. So that has really happened much more
this year, hasn't it with the Trump administration. How does
that play into what you've already made clear has been
the case on your old agency and the CIA's perception
(04:32):
of China, that it's the major intelligence challenge of the
twenty first century.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I think there's been really issues around this relationship for
some time, and in particular, I think the rupture of
normal diplomatic contact that happened during the pandemic. I mean,
for a number of years senior Chinese and senior America
just didn't meet. And that's a wiring thing. You know,
you't has an intelligence officer where you can see the
(04:57):
dangers of things, of miscalculation, those of issues. You want
the diplomatch. You want the leaders to be talking more regularly.
Now you know the fact that President Trump and President
she met recently, that's helpful. The tariffs is the current
issue between them. But I mean there are clearly any
number of rub points between the US and China and
between the US's allies and China.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
And help me understand how you see China, because I
know you've talked about China as an opportunity and a threat,
and that combination is quite hard for people like me
and perhaps other outsiders to get our heads around. So
it just has a complexity within it, then, I imagine
makes it hard for someone like you to help formulate policy.
(05:41):
How is a government supposed to deal with the country
as both an opportunity and a threat.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So I mean, I think the starting point when I
talk about opportunity and threat is partly because of the
nature of intelligence, is that people often assume understandably that
we're all about threats. And if you look at an
organization like MI five, that's primarily what they're they're to
do is to manage the threat.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
The domestic intelligence domestic.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
King of the UK or the FBI in America, et cetera.
But a foreign intelligence service like my former service, I six,
is there to gather intelligence on a number of global issues,
and some of that intelligence is used by ministers and
senior officials to exploit opportunities as well as to manage threats.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
That's what you meant by opportunity and threat that it's
an opportunity to gather intelligence. And it is a no,
it's right.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
It's it's you gather intelligence to enable your political leadership
to seize opportunities which may be upside ones. Is my point.
It's not all it's not all about managing threats. And
with China, clearly, you know this is a huge and
powerful country. It re emerged onto the international scene, and
its values and interests certainly don't overlap always with our own.
(06:52):
So you know you are looking at it if you
are the Prime Minister of Great Britain or the president
of the United States, about how do you manage that
relationship in a way that means you secure UK interest
And for me, that means you are pretty robust at home.
You are pretty robust about trying to deny and then
to tackle any behavior aimed at your own country, whether
(07:13):
that is espionage or cyber attacks, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And does that happen all the time.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
It's pretty relentless. Yeah, So what did.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You think of the collapse of the recent case against
two individuals, two British men, who are accused of s
buying for China.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, what I'll say on that is very clearly I'll
repeat what I just said, which is that China is
intent on gathering intelligence on the UK and we have
to recognize that. And Ken McCallum, the director general at
m I five, has spoken about that.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
He said he was frustrated.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Like him, I don't think I'll be drawn on an
individual case. That's for the lawyers to resolve, but it's
certainly the case that they're active in the space.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
And if you can't and if you can't take people
to task for acting in space that was the accusation
against those two men, then where does it leave you
as a country? What are your leavers?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
What I'll say on that, Michelle is clearly, if you
are spying for a foreign power against the United Kingdom
and you are caught, then you should expect to you
to receive the consequences of that action. You will understand
also why I tend to discourage politicians from being too
moralistic about the issue of spying in itself. The UK
(08:27):
has rather effective intelligence organizations and we are actively gathering
intelligence against other countries. I think where you have to
be less tolerant is the sort of hybrid warfare activity
that we're seeing from Russia arson attempted assassination that crosses
a very different line for me. But against all of
(08:48):
these m I five, with our help and with Gcchdu's
help and with help of our allies, is trying to
detect and deter that type of activity.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So just on language, just understand how you see China
and therefore perhaps how you suggest we should see it.
Do you see China as an active national security threat?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I think clearly China is involved in activities which threaten
our interests and we should be very robust and pushing
back against those, and they would expect us to do so,
to be honest, and Beijing respects strength in this space.
So I think it is both the right thing to
do and also is the practical and good thing to do.
And I've always noticed when countries have had sort of
(09:26):
set tos with China, it doesn't always impact on trade.
Sometimes trade goes up. Do you remember when David Cameron
met the Dalai Lama and has caused a big sort
of to do with China. As I understand that our
trade figures went up.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
After that incident, So stick to your values, to your gun.
What would you do with the Chinese embassy? The plan
for the new mega embassy would be the largest embassy
in Europe on the edge of the city of London.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Again, what I would say on this is that countries
obviously have to have embassies. So there's clearly, you know,
we need one in Beijing, and it's important that we
have that. So it's right proper that the Chinese should
get their embassy, whether it's this one or not. It
is really not for me to.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Just it's a particularly big one. It is going to
be enormous.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I'm not there to justify you know its size or
you know what it does, but you know it is.
I'm sure there has to be a way through where
they get an appropriate embassy and we are allowed to
retain and develop our own excellent embassy in Beijing.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I do want to know about how this journey of
your professional life of forty years, nearly forty.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Years, nearly forty years to make sure that it.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
All began, so to cast your mind right back to
your recruitment, how did that happen in the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I'm afraid I am an almost stereotypical example of what
is sometimes referred to as a tap on the shoulder.
And what's more, ad Oxford so one an academic and
let me even now I went, I name who they were.
But an academic approached me and they knew that I
was interested in a career and I was looking at
the foreign offers potentially as a route as a career,
(10:59):
as well as your former employer, the BBC, who rejected
me without an interview, Michelle, something I have often well, I'll.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Tell you what I'll throw back at that is that
when I left university I was not eligible to enter
the service that you led because both my parents were
not born in the UK. In fact, neither of my
parents were born in the UK.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
No, and thank goodness, we've changed that, as we have
also changed the method of approaching people.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
But that doesn't happen anymore. The time.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I remember him saying, you know, would you be interested
in the career and an alternative field of foreign affairs,
I must have been a very naive twenty year old.
I didn't have a clue what he meant, but one
thing led to another. I got a letter was.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
That academic at Oxford. Was he in the service?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Was that he covered in those days? No, no, no no.
In those days, there was a very kind of informal
set of what we're called talent spotters, and their job
was to look at bright people coming through and who
they thought might be suitable for our peculiar line of work.
And he picked me, and I have no idea maybe
he picked others. I meet very senior people in public
(12:03):
life who it's always kind of they come into my
office and they sort of and it's really funny how
they're still very secure about it, and they look around
and they check no one's there, and then they declare
that they were approached and for one reason or another
they chose not.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
To come in or they didn't make the grade.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Maybe well for all those very distinguished people in the
first category.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
But did you hesitate once you realize what the worst
alternative career meant? What did you think? I know, your
father was a foreign office man, so you knew that
well genuine but spying.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, you can imagine. I was intrigued by it. I
thought it'd be exciting. I didn't know very much. I mean,
in those days, they told you virtually nothing, so I
think coming into it it was a bit more of
a punt than it would be today. I did think
about it, and because I thought about the issues which
(12:56):
you know are involved in it, you know, which are
quite difficult, involving a degree of deception, and so I
thought about it. But I think having done some conversations
and being encouraged by people, including my wonderful father who
was very you know, so straight down the line and
a man of towering integrity and had many friends within
(13:17):
the service, so I kind of felt that my mum
was cheering me on. So between that I decided to
give it a go.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
But the hesitation, I get the impression is not so
much then about living your life with secrecy as you
then had to do from most people. The deception as
in what did that mean?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, living a life of secrecy, as you put it,
requires a degree of deception because.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
You're not being honest with people around here.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, some close friends, members of the wider family are
not aware of what you're doing for a living, and
so yeah, you have to be comfortable with that along
with the character traits of Also, you know, if you're
desperate for recognition for what you do, this is not
the right professor to go into. You've got to be
satisfied with the intrinsic importance of the mission and the
(14:05):
motivating power of that mission. You've got to be satisfied
with the comradeship, the teamwork that goes with the people
who are in the know. But you can't go down
to the pub at the end of the week and
have a brag about it to your mates.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And you have to be ready for people to see
your life as a kind of boring desk job, a
lot of.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Them, indeed, including your children for the early part of
their lives, this gray man in the Foreign Office.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
When and how did you tell your children?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So it varies from family to family. It's a big
decision because once you tell them, of course, you're pulling
them within that circle of knowledge and you're putting something
on them. They then become complicit. So you think about it.
In our case, I think we decided when our kids
were in their kind of early mid teens, seemed the
right moment to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And the words you used were, well.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
It's really funny, Michelle, because here I was I remember
with my son. I can't tell the full story fundamentally,
you know, I should by that stage. I'm an experienced
intelligence officer. I have learned to pitch people, to put
the question to them, to try and say, will you know,
will you work with us? And I've been trained to
do that, completely and utterly messed it up with my
(15:14):
own son. So, first of all, Maggie and I made
the mistake of sitting there and looking slightly nervous and
solemn in front of him, so of course I could
see in his eyes he thought we were about to
announce our divorce. So then I started to gabble in
front of him and just sort of spewed out in
the end, and he kind of looked at him at
oh God, thank God for that, and said something which
is unprintable.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
But Maggie, your wife knew all along, because you've known
each other since you were very young.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yes, that's unusual. When I joined the Servers, albeit at
twenty four, we were already married by then, so it
was very much all of those you know, thinking through
the issues was done, of course, chatting it through with
Maggie as well. But think again of colleagues who do
begin over a man attachment and at some point they
(16:02):
too because I can't just say it on the first date.
At some point, they too have to find having you know,
checked in with the offers, with the servers, they have
to find the right time to say they might have
not have been entirely honest in that first phase of
the relationship, and.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
The relationship doesn't last, and you've got someone out there
in the right world.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Something really import they do. So if you're going to
split up, then do it as amically if possible, I
think would be the advice.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I want to ask about what spycraft is actually like
because look the time when you went into the service,
you will have read John McCarry and presumely in Fleming,
you know all of that kind of the classic things
people know. Was it actually like that?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So this is a terrible admission to make. But when
I came into the I hadn't read a single and
Fleming novel. So I'm desperately putting that right and reading
my way through them. I had read Lacarrey, I now
put Nick Heron right up there, and the Pantheon alongside
the carry I think books, Yeah, yeah, I have the
slow horses. But many people will be more familiar, perhaps
(17:05):
with the TV than they are the books, but the
books are fantastic, so there's just a massive difference. These
are works of fettion, works of creativity. Clearly, with la
Carrie there was you know, he spent a short period
in the service, so there was some very similitude, particularly
to those portraits of early Cold War Berlin and all
(17:25):
the rest of that. And you occasionally will see references
to tradecraft in them, and sometimes it's accurate and sometimes
it isn't. But look, it's very different. Of course, it's
very different in real life. But occasionally there is a
degree of intrigue and excitement which touches over into that world.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Isn't there a degree also of seeing the use in
people and then using them. When you identify people, you
are trying to work out how they can further Britain's
interests and trying to get to them in one way
or another.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You are clearly trying to forge a relationship with an
the human being because you need the secrets that they possess.
Yah And therefore that if you think through it means
you have to create a relationship of real intimacy and
trust with them because you're often asking them to take
risks in order to gather that intelligence and share it
(18:16):
with you, which are significant, and they won't do it
unless they can look at you and think this is
a person who is professional. They're going to be competent
in the managing of this relationship. And they will also
they'll be looking for something else. They'll be looking for
something they can trust, They'll be looking for the values
in that space. So yeah, it's very powerful because you
were about to enter into a relationship where there's a
(18:39):
huge amount at stake. I mean, sometimes the case officers
will be putting themselves in harms way in that relationship,
but nothing like that of the secret agent. The persons
agreed to do it.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And sometimes you're offering money or are you often offering money?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
What I can say on that space is very obviously,
when people are going to come and talk to you
and take those sort of risks, they're going to be
driven by different motivations, and our job is not to
be particularly judgmental frankly about those motivations, to try and
work out something that works for both parties. And if
(19:14):
that involves some financial conversation, yeah, yeah, of course we'll
do that.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
But I wonder whether it means that you start to
see people in a certain way, or whether you ever
worried about your perception of people. My grandfather worked in
intelligence for about a year. The reason he left it
was because he said he felt it made you suspicious
of everyone.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
So I think it's a really profoundly important point. And
when we're looking to recruit people the sort of people
who will be successful in this world, they have to
be really centered individuals, they have to really know themselves,
and they have to be very low ego because precisely
for those reasons, you are going to be bouncing up
(19:54):
against some really difficult ethical situations in this work. So
you'd better be very well.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
You mean, the people like you is not the agents
that you recruit in different countries.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I meant, I meant people within I sixter. Yes, absolutely,
they need to be in that place so that you
don't get what you're describing there as a sort of
you know, a drift over time into doing stuff that
you would have regarded as unacceptable. And therefore, you know,
people are very thoughtful. I mean, throughout my career, I've
really thought about these things. These things are important, and
(20:27):
we you know, within the organization, we give people space
to think through this. If people have personal crisis of
conscience on this, it's very important they come. You know,
that they work it out, you know, within the circle
of secrecy. As you can imagine.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Did you ever have an agent who you'd recruited and
developed who then was arrested or worse in another country.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, I'm going to distance it a bit from me
because I don't want to talk about things that I
did in case, because I'm very averse to give any
clues as to who might have worked with me and
the past. But of course, from time to time that
is bound to happen. You know, our commitment to people
is to keep them safe, and we will pendever backwards
(21:12):
to do that. But you know, in history, for reasons
sometimes unconnected with what MI I six does, circumstances will
lead to their arrest. And that's a very difficult moment
because we really, you know, we root for those people.
They are why we exist as a human intelligence service,
and it's very painful when it happens. But it doesn't
happen very often because we are very very careful.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And you have to be good readers of people. I
imagine when you reveal yourself to someone you.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Have to be very into and you have to you
definitely have to have that, and you have to have
the set of values which they recognize. If you get
a reputation of just using and abusing people, they're not
going to choose to come and talk to you, are they,
Or when you approach them, they're going to say a
very abrupt no. But they know with I six that
they will get care and attention and you know, will
(21:59):
look after them.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Then about something that might have been a test or
almost certainly was a test of exactly what you're saying,
And it's the period after nine to eleven when the
US and the UK worked very closely together. The US
carried out torture on detainees. We knew that from the
Feinstein led report, the US Senate report in twenty fourteen,
and the UK MPs found later on in their own
(22:23):
report went along with it.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
So I'm not sure I recognize the characterization you've just given.
I mean, we're clearly very close to the US. I
work through that period, including on difficult Cali terrorism work,
including in Islamabad. I was there when the very first
Al Qaeda bombs developed in back my daughter was in
(22:47):
a kindergarten whose windows were blurn in by a bomb
which exploded in the Egyptian embassy. So I was right
in the midst of all that, Michelle. And it's very
clear that the US administration at the time did whole
pile of things which were utterly unacceptable. You know, we
will know about waterboarding, you.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Know, which is did you know about it at the time.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
No, because they were very, very careful to exclude us.
They absolutely did not tell their UK counterpartment.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
See, that's not really what came out in the MP's
report here in the UK after three years of looking
into it. Their finding was that the UK tolerated inexcusable
treatment of US detainees and that did involve waterboarding, stress positions,
sleep deprivation, being in coffin sized boxes. And the mp
sais beyond doubt that the UK knew how the US
(23:37):
handled some detainees.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
So I'm not sure I agree with beyond doubt in
those terms because I was there and they were not.
Their description of the activity is perfectly valid. I agree
with it, and we, of course, let's be clear, we
deal with partners around the world to employ methods that
we would not countenance and we're very careful that in
(24:00):
our engagement with them that we do not facilitate or
enhance that type of behavior.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
The MPs were pretty thorough. British agencies continue to supply
intelligence despite knowing or suspecting abuse in more than two hundred.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I'm Michelle, I'm not We're taking into slightly different areas.
You know, did the relationship continue with the Americans and
therefore did we pass material as described by the MP's
Undoubtedly where the lessons learned about that. Absolutely, there is
now an entire compliance process around us led by the
Investigatory Powers Commission. That doesn't happen unless one recognizes that
(24:37):
there are mistakes made. So let me I mean, I
don't want to give the impression that I'm not accepting
I am. I'm just saying, you know, we were starting
about individuals and where they were individually, and I'm trying
to make the point that as individual officers, including me
at the time, No, I did not realize that my
US counterpart was involved in that type of activity. Otherwise
(25:00):
I would have not approached it in the same way
you know it might I you know, you know, is
there an argument that we should have been better earlier
at working out that things were going on that we
would not do. Yeah, of course I accept that completely.
I'm not trying to resist that. I was just trying
to resist any kind of implication that individuals within mi
I six were complicit in this, because if they had been,
(25:23):
they would be in jail. And not a single six
officer has been prosecuted for this, and I'm very proud
of that. That's not because they weren't caught, Michelle, It's
because they have that set of values that I described earlier.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
On Can we bring it up to the present day,
then sure. If you grab those headphones, I want to
(25:55):
play you a little of a very striking appearance that
you made while you were in office at m when
you appeared on a stage with the Ft with your
then US counterpart, indeed, William Burns, And this is part
of what you said.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I think our partnership does matter enormously to both of
our services, but I think also to both of our countries.
We have no better foreign partner in the world. My
agency doesn't than sas.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
We will share more with each other than we will
do with anyone else because of the high levels of
trust that built up over many many years, as partship
goes back in one form or another over a century.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
So that was you in September twenty twenty four. Indeed,
what were the last nine months of your service? Like
with the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So Bill moved out, of course, it was a wonderful colleague,
Bill Burns, and one of the great sort of public
servants of the US in recent decades. And he was
replaced by a general called John Ratcliffe, who has been
an excellent partner. And clearly, you get changes of administration
in Washington, you get changes of government in the UK,
(27:02):
and in my case rather too many, leaving aside the politics,
just the sheer number of prime ministers foreign secretaries that
I dealt with in my five years. So that moves on.
But the partnership remains the most critical one for our
two nations, and the people called upon to steward that relationship.
The chief of m I six and the Director of
CIA worked very, very hard on that relationship.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Are you suggesting there's been no change at all, because
there was a very obvious practical change wherein March the
US suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine for a bit, So
that was an indication of a very different era. William
Burns himself has characterized this period in the US as
being a really difficult one. It's that the sacking of officials,
(27:46):
including intelligence officials, has been about retribution rather than reform.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
What I can say on that is that the relationship
continues to be a really important and strong one and
I work really hard on it. You know, all relationships evolve,
they change, the personalities change, the policies change, and you know,
when you're a chief of N six you deal with
the world as it is and get.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
On with it. It helped me understand how it evolved in
this period because clearly Russia and Ukraine, China, these are
all present threats and issues. How do they evolve in
these nights your.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Influence, don't you so? Ukraine is a good example where
you know, we have very clear views in the UK
about prosecuting that war and how to support the Ukrainians,
and you know, our voice is one that is listened
to in Washington. So things change move around a bit,
that's the style of the current administration, but we are
always there and it's our responsibility to use that to
(28:40):
convey exactly what the intelligence is telling us, and it's
telling us for example, that Pujin has no intention of
doing a deal, that this is not an issue for
him purely of territory. This is about dominating Ukraine and
turning Ukraine into something he looks rather like it's neighbor Belarus.
So all of that stuff we talked to the Americans
about all the time, and I think you can sometimes
(29:01):
he has no intention of fact.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Doing a deal flooding with Putin. If he has no
intention of doing a deal, then how do you see
this ending this.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
At the moment under current conditions. Well, I'm basing this
on access as I had a few weeks ago to
our understanding of the intelligence on it, and that is
that he's not ready to do a deal. So for me,
the answer to that is he needs to be put
under more pressure so he is prepared to do a deal.
The president of Ukraine is clearly ready to do a deal.
He's remarkably in the pursuit of peace, prepared to give
(29:31):
a way up to twenty percent of his country de facto,
and yet Putin is not. So what's going to change
that more pressure on the battlefield. Ukrainians have an undercapitalized
defense industry. They have spare capacity that cash would solve.
There is more that we can give them. There is
more that we can give them in terms of permission
(29:51):
to use long range weaponry, for example. There's all of that,
as well as giving them the sort of you know,
the basics of air defense and all that. And there's
an opportunity to put a lot more pressure on Putin
at home. And I don't pretend that that is going
to give immediate results. One of the things I would
say in this space is we have to be patient.
We have to be prepared to see this off. And
(30:12):
I talked about this, including with Bill and on that
occasion that you gave us the quote from the just
seminal importance of this for the Western Alliance that we
do not lose this contest of wills.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So you've told me your reading of President Putin. What
about your reading of President Trump? Why does he give
Putin the red carpet welcome?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Michelle. The wonderful thing about the job I had the
honor of doing is that we spy on Putin, but
we don't spy on our American allies. So there are
other people who would be better qualified than me to
comment on us politics.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Right, just about your the reading of him from your experience,
not about inside information? Why is he so generous to
President Putin?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
What I would say on that is, I do recognize
in President Trump a genuine commitment to peace. I mean,
he clearly finds the horrors of war as witnessed in
Ukraine or indeed in Gaza apparent, and he is determined
to bring it to an end. My job is to
inform my own Prime minister and then to you know,
(31:18):
discuss with the Director of CIA. As I was saying,
the picture we have of what's driving Putin and so
you know, I think there has been an evolution of
thinking in the administration about Putin. And clearly Putin is
trying to play us. You know, he's he's an intelligence officer, Michelle,
I recognize the type. He's trying to maneuver us into
a place which is convenient for him, and we need
(31:39):
to pin him down and not allow him that maneuverability.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
You're painting a picture of a still long war ahead.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I think I don't know. You know that I was
paid to steel secrets, not solved mysteries, so I don't
know how long it would be. But it's just so
so important that we don't lose this contest of worlds,
not just because of what that does inside Putin and
other senior Russian minds and what it might invite in
(32:07):
terms of opportunistic testing of our defenses, some of which
we've seen in recent weeks, but also because President she
is watching this really carefully, and the Chinese leadership has
evolved a sort of narrative of Western weakness really ever
since the international financial crisis, and there's a real danger
that it be sees US being weak on Ukraine, then
(32:31):
he will draw conclusions from that on his own behaviors
around the South China see and potentially on Taiwan.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Have those two countries, Russian China been pushed closer together
by America's actions this year? Remember those images in Shanghai
and Beijing with Vladimir Putin and Si jinping together and
Kim Jong un as well.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I don't think it's been pushed together by the US.
They have been pushed together by their alliance around particularly
and Ukraine. It's a very unequal arrangement. But Putin has
become increasingly dependent on Chinese support, and although the Chinese
have not given the Russian some of the more sophisticated
(33:13):
end of weaponry. It is the case that they have
been very helpful with what things are called dual use things.
None of those things which might have a civil and
a military application, so to chemicals in those shells are
mostly Chinese. A lot of the components in the missile
ray are Chinese. They might I don't know for all
I know, they might be good in a washing machine,
but they are certainly a missile. So it's very clear
(33:34):
that Putin has become more and more dependent, and of
course the Ranians and the North Koreans have also helped
them out, so there has been a tightening of that
group of four people to do bad stuff together.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
The other day, on an episode of this podcast, I
spoke to the Venezuelan peace Laurriate Maria Garina Machado, and
this is an ongoing situation in the Caribbean where the
US has for the last couple of months been carrying
out st on boat, saying that they were drug smugglers
on board. You've grappled with so many issues of this kind.
(34:07):
You've lived through a time of drone strikes in places
like Afghanistan. What do you think when you look at
that situation in the Caribbean.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Well, I really am not across it, Michelle, and it's not,
you know, compared to some other issues and areas, one
which is in the forefront of British interests and things.
So I don't know, I genuinely don't know on what
the US are basing these strikes. But you know you
made the reference to Afghanistan and to drone strikes, and
(34:37):
in extremers only, we would always prefer to arrest people
and put them in front of a court. But in
certain parts of the world, at certain times, people who
would do you harm, particularly in our case terrorists, you know,
you can't reach them. And there are bits of Somalia
that that's probably true for and there were certainly were
that bits of Afghanistan in those days, and in extremists.
(35:00):
Ministers might authorize a lethal operation like a drone strike
in order to remove a threat. But when you do that, again,
it has to be within UK law, and UK law
requires things to be necessary and proportionate to the threat posed,
and there's usually a strong it's as a very legalistic word,
in imminence. In other words, it's not just a threat
(35:20):
might be vaguely materialized in twenty years time. It has
to feel real and now. So that's the basis on
which we would proceed. And I really can't comment on
what's happening in Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Can we talk closer to home about politicians in Europe?
And I'm thinking of two in particular who have been
accused of echoing Russian talking points on Ukraine and who
might be perceived as soft on Russia, who certainly faced
those accusations. One is Nigel Farat, who might be the
next UK Prime minister, and the other is Marine le Pen.
(35:52):
Would you have concerns about either of those people being
elected to those offices.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Michelle, I've spent thirty eight years being devotedly nonpartisan and
I will, of course, I'm not about to throw that
habit out of the window. My job is very simple
on this, and my job was very simple on this,
which is to give advice based on good intelligence about
what Putin is actually intending. And that's what I would do,
(36:18):
and that's what my success will do, regardless of who's
the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. I come back
to what is the job of the Chief of m
I six, it's to serve the government of the day,
within the law and beying UK law, and that's what
you do. You get on with it and you provide
truth to power. So again one of the things the
Chief does frequently is appear in front of the Prime
(36:39):
Minister and the Foreign Secretary and sometimes tell them things
they really really don't want to hear, particularly if it's
a Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So when you step away from all of that as
you have, now, what is the decompression like, Because what
you're describing is I mean, it must affect every area
of your life. I imagine you can't really do a
job like that without devoting every probably every waking hour
to it.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I didn't worry about things I couldn't change the starters.
And the thing that I would focus a lot on
is around our own business, the business of human intelligence,
work of keeping that going in a world where you know,
the tools of surveillance, way to gain, you know, used
against you, are pretty sophisticated. So the thing that I
(37:22):
would worry most is that are we going to stay
in this game? Are we going to keep being good
enough at our methodology, our trade craft to keep in
this game? Are we going to get the right technology
fast enough to stay in the game.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
So is it much more about technology than the human
factor now compared to the way you Well.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
It's both. It's just not binary at all. So you
need great technology, and AI helps us enormously in interrogating
vast amounts of data and perhaps helping us to find
somebody who might be prepared to help us. At the
same time, you can see in China that this surveillance
state is pretty well advanced, and a lot of that
technology makes its way overseas, and so so you know
(38:00):
how to be Beijing, you might encounter that in Dubai
or in other cities. So we have a very mindful
of the capabilities that are deployed against us. So I
worried about that. I worried whether we'd stay on top
of the game. I'm glad to report I think we are.
But it's a bit of an arms race. It's a
thing you know, you have to continue to do. And
one of the reasons I decided that we needed to
be a little bit more open about ourselves and speak
about our mission a bit more was partly because I
(38:22):
wanted to engage technology outside government, because they would often
have the solutions that would help us in that space, you.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Mean the open Ayes and the Googles of this.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
World, everything from the really big defense or tech companies
to the woman doing something in her garage to invent
something utterly brilliant, and both of them. Actually, in some ways,
the bigger companies were easier to reach. We had some
structures for doing that. We would clear members of their
teams so they could see some of the secret staff.
But if you were a small startup, that's not your world.
(38:54):
And if we were to wait and say, you know,
we need to put you through security vetting. You know
these people or start up make their billion and then
go out of business, don't they in the time it
would take us to go through a vetting process.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So it happened. Did you manage to do some kind
of fast.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Track, done some great stuff both HMGCC, which the horrible
acronym I apologize for it, but it is basically our
National Security Engineering Hub. You know, if you are a
Bond fan, I suppose it's the nearest we have to
q Labs sits in Milton Keen, and they'd be much
more open about their mission and their technology. And you
can now go to a building near the Milton key
(39:28):
station and you can literally walk in and talk about
some of the technology. That's one thing. And the second thing.
A few years ago under Alex Younger, my predecessor, we
decided to get into the venture capital side. So there's
a thing called the National Security Strategic Investment Fund and
it looks at technologies which might not quite make it
left purely to the commercial side, but by if you
(39:49):
like having a UK intelligence community in promateur on a
particular bit of technology, it often excites the interests of
private adventure capital and they bring in and we've got
some like a forty percent. They call it a pull
through rate, So of the technologies that are invested in,
forty percent of the end up being used in the organization.
And that's a big change.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
So what's life on the outside feel like?
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I think, if you're going to do these jobs, you
do them for five years, and you do actually have
to look after yourself. And I had an extraordinary institution
under me, and you can delegate and you know, a
brilliant directors general the next level below me in the organization,
and I could walk away and have a HOLI day. Clearly,
if something massive blew up, then you come home but
by allies, you could do that. I'm also, i think,
(40:32):
a reasonably calm person, and so I'm not a big fretter.
I think you don't want to worry her in this job.
So you know, the last six weeks, I think a
lot of friends are looking for me to sort of
look totally transformed, but I don't feel that way. I
had a very nice holiday with Maggie and in Tuscany,
which we really enjoyed, and then we came back and
I'm sort of thinking about what I might do next.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
There's a vacancy for investor in washing, not.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
For me, there isn't. I wish whoever takes on that
role the best of luck and grant candidate so easily.
I say it so easily because of course I've given
a lot of thought and I made a decision. So
it's easy. Then why But why? Because I think there
are people better qualified than me to do the job.
And after five years of a really reasonably intensive, intense job,
(41:15):
I'm ready to do some other things, including say a
bit more of my grandson and and the other stuff.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Richard Moore, thank you very.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Much, Thanks very much, Michelle.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
And that's the Michelle Hussein show for this week. If
you haven't already subscribed, please do. You'll always know as
soon as we have a new episode. That way, if
you've left us a comment, even given us some stars,
thank you. You can watch these conversations on YouTube and
on Bloomberg TV, and you'll find the written version with
my notes at Bloomberg dot com Slash Weekend. The team
(41:52):
is producers Jessica Beck and Chris Martin. You guest booking
by Dave Warren, Social media by Alex Morgan. This week
our sound engineer was Richard Ward. Video editing was by
Laura Francis. The executive producer is Louisa Lewis at Bloomberg Weekend.
Editorial Director of Audio and Special Projects is Brendan Francis Newnham,
(42:14):
and our executive editor is Catherine Bell Bart Walshaw composed
our music and this week's special Thanks go to Alex
Wickham and Brendan Scott, as well as Alana Susnow, Summersadi
and Sage Bauman, and of course thanks to you for listening.
Please come back next Weekend
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I left the job after five years that I certainly
haven't left the world in a better place than I
found it, and I'm lucky that wasn't in my job description.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Richard Moore, spy, British Intelligence chief and now in his
first broadcast interview since stepping down, taking us into a
world of secrets.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What is the job of the chief of them? I say,
it's to serve a government of the day within the law,
and you provide truth to power and sometimes tell them
things I really really don't want to hear, particularly if
it's a Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
From Bloomberg Weekend. This is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
Michelle Hussein. When I was growing up, my parents had
a friend, a British diplomat in the United Arab Emirates
where we lived. This was someone they liked and respected
and kept in touch with as his work took him
(01:05):
from one place to another. Only they worried about his career.
They wondered why he was never appointed a British ambassador
until one day we heard his name on the radio
because he was being appointed as chief of Britain's six
The secret Intelligence Service with the code name C. At
(01:26):
that point we realized there was nothing to worry about.
He had never been an ordinary diplomat, and in many ways,
that story, that double life, is also the story of
my guest today, Richard Moore. For nearly four decades, his
world was espionage. He was in MI six, the agency
(01:48):
most people know or think they know through James Bond,
but his career was the real life version. It was
all about countries or groups that would wish Britain harm
and people that he could spot and recruit that he
hoped would help keep it safe. Now that he's stepped
down after five years in the job, he's been talking
(02:11):
to me. You'll hear the story of how his career
began with a tap on the shoulder, the moment he
told his teenage children the truth about what he did
for a living and about values, challenges, responsibility, and risk
from Russia to China and Venezuela to the United States. Welcome,
(02:36):
Thank you for doing this, Richard. Until six weeks ago,
your daily work involved reading highly classified intelligence, and I
wonder if therefore I could start with the here and
now and your perception of the world, what you see
as you look around the world today that me and
most people watching or listening to this my Nazi.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Thank you, Rachelle. It's lovely to be here. As I reflect,
yes a few weeks on, I think we're in an
extraordinarily contested international environment. I don't think in thirty eight
years of being an intelligence officer and a diplomat, I've
seen it less well ordered. There's just an extraordinary number
of loose ends, if you like, on the international scene,
and we might talk about some of those in a
(03:19):
bit more detail, like Ukraine or what happens next in
Gaza or over Iran. There are so many of these,
and unfortunately the way in which relationships have broken down
between leading powers, particularly following Russian behavior in Ukraine, but
also a difficult relationship and utterly between Washington and Beijing.
(03:40):
Some of the tramlines that we were used to in
the years after nineteen forty five are not really there
to manage some of this contestation. So one thing I've
said is I left the job after five years that
I certainly haven't left the world in a better place
than I've found it, and I'm lucky that wasn't in
my job description.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Contested means more dangerous. We should be clear.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
There's definitely dangers in the world as we look at them,
and they can suddenly loom out of the mist at
you and.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The fact that you said that relationships fraying is a
part of this, and you mentioned that the relationship between
Washington and Beijing. So that has really happened much more
this year, hasn't it with the Trump administration. How does
that play into what you've already made clear has been
the case on your old agency and the CIA's perception
(04:32):
of China, that it's the major intelligence challenge of the
twenty first century.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I think there's been really issues around this relationship for
some time, and in particular, I think the rupture of
normal diplomatic contact that happened during the pandemic. I mean,
for a number of years senior Chinese and senior America
just didn't meet. And that's a wiring thing. You know,
you't has an intelligence officer where you can see the
(04:57):
dangers of things, of miscalculation, those of issues. You want
the diplomatch. You want the leaders to be talking more regularly.
Now you know the fact that President Trump and President
she met recently, that's helpful. The tariffs is the current
issue between them. But I mean there are clearly any
number of rub points between the US and China and
between the US's allies and China.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
And help me understand how you see China, because I
know you've talked about China as an opportunity and a threat,
and that combination is quite hard for people like me
and perhaps other outsiders to get our heads around. So
it just has a complexity within it, then, I imagine
makes it hard for someone like you to help formulate policy.
(05:41):
How is a government supposed to deal with the country
as both an opportunity and a threat.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So I mean, I think the starting point when I
talk about opportunity and threat is partly because of the
nature of intelligence, is that people often assume understandably that
we're all about threats. And if you look at an
organization like MI five, that's primarily what they're they're to
do is to manage the threat.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
The domestic intelligence domestic.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
King of the UK or the FBI in America, et cetera.
But a foreign intelligence service like my former service, I six,
is there to gather intelligence on a number of global issues,
and some of that intelligence is used by ministers and
senior officials to exploit opportunities as well as to manage threats.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
That's what you meant by opportunity and threat that it's
an opportunity to gather intelligence. And it is a no,
it's right.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
It's it's you gather intelligence to enable your political leadership
to seize opportunities which may be upside ones. Is my point.
It's not all it's not all about managing threats. And
with China, clearly, you know this is a huge and
powerful country. It re emerged onto the international scene, and
its values and interests certainly don't overlap always with our own.
(06:52):
So you know you are looking at it if you
are the Prime Minister of Great Britain or the president
of the United States, about how do you manage that
relationship in a way that means you secure UK interest
And for me, that means you are pretty robust at home.
You are pretty robust about trying to deny and then
to tackle any behavior aimed at your own country, whether
(07:13):
that is espionage or cyber attacks, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And does that happen all the time.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
It's pretty relentless. Yeah, So what did.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You think of the collapse of the recent case against
two individuals, two British men, who are accused of s
buying for China.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, what I'll say on that is very clearly I'll
repeat what I just said, which is that China is
intent on gathering intelligence on the UK and we have
to recognize that. And Ken McCallum, the director general at
m I five, has spoken about that.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
He said he was frustrated.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Like him, I don't think I'll be drawn on an
individual case. That's for the lawyers to resolve, but it's
certainly the case that they're active in the space.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
And if you can't and if you can't take people
to task for acting in space that was the accusation
against those two men, then where does it leave you
as a country? What are your leavers?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
What I'll say on that, Michelle is clearly, if you
are spying for a foreign power against the United Kingdom
and you are caught, then you should expect to you
to receive the consequences of that action. You will understand
also why I tend to discourage politicians from being too
moralistic about the issue of spying in itself. The UK
(08:27):
has rather effective intelligence organizations and we are actively gathering
intelligence against other countries. I think where you have to
be less tolerant is the sort of hybrid warfare activity
that we're seeing from Russia arson attempted assassination that crosses
a very different line for me. But against all of
(08:48):
these m I five, with our help and with Gcchdu's
help and with help of our allies, is trying to
detect and deter that type of activity.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So just on language, just understand how you see China
and therefore perhaps how you suggest we should see it.
Do you see China as an active national security threat?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I think clearly China is involved in activities which threaten
our interests and we should be very robust and pushing
back against those, and they would expect us to do so,
to be honest, and Beijing respects strength in this space.
So I think it is both the right thing to
do and also is the practical and good thing to do.
And I've always noticed when countries have had sort of
(09:26):
set tos with China, it doesn't always impact on trade.
Sometimes trade goes up. Do you remember when David Cameron
met the Dalai Lama and has caused a big sort
of to do with China. As I understand that our
trade figures went up.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
After that incident, So stick to your values, to your gun.
What would you do with the Chinese embassy? The plan
for the new mega embassy would be the largest embassy
in Europe on the edge of the city of London.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Again, what I would say on this is that countries
obviously have to have embassies. So there's clearly, you know,
we need one in Beijing, and it's important that we
have that. So it's right proper that the Chinese should
get their embassy, whether it's this one or not. It
is really not for me to.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Just it's a particularly big one. It is going to
be enormous.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I'm not there to justify you know its size or
you know what it does, but you know it is.
I'm sure there has to be a way through where
they get an appropriate embassy and we are allowed to
retain and develop our own excellent embassy in Beijing.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I do want to know about how this journey of
your professional life of forty years, nearly forty.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Years, nearly forty years to make sure that it.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
All began, so to cast your mind right back to
your recruitment, how did that happen in the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I'm afraid I am an almost stereotypical example of what
is sometimes referred to as a tap on the shoulder.
And what's more, ad Oxford so one an academic and
let me even now I went, I name who they were.
But an academic approached me and they knew that I
was interested in a career and I was looking at
the foreign offers potentially as a route as a career,
(10:59):
as well as your former employer, the BBC, who rejected
me without an interview, Michelle, something I have often well, I'll.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Tell you what I'll throw back at that is that
when I left university I was not eligible to enter
the service that you led because both my parents were
not born in the UK. In fact, neither of my
parents were born in the UK.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
No, and thank goodness, we've changed that, as we have
also changed the method of approaching people.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
But that doesn't happen anymore. The time.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I remember him saying, you know, would you be interested
in the career and an alternative field of foreign affairs,
I must have been a very naive twenty year old.
I didn't have a clue what he meant, but one
thing led to another. I got a letter was.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
That academic at Oxford. Was he in the service?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Was that he covered in those days? No, no, no no.
In those days, there was a very kind of informal
set of what we're called talent spotters, and their job
was to look at bright people coming through and who
they thought might be suitable for our peculiar line of work.
And he picked me, and I have no idea maybe
he picked others. I meet very senior people in public
(12:03):
life who it's always kind of they come into my
office and they sort of and it's really funny how
they're still very secure about it, and they look around
and they check no one's there, and then they declare
that they were approached and for one reason or another
they chose not.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
To come in or they didn't make the grade.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Maybe well for all those very distinguished people in the
first category.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
But did you hesitate once you realize what the worst
alternative career meant? What did you think? I know, your
father was a foreign office man, so you knew that
well genuine but spying.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, you can imagine. I was intrigued by it. I
thought it'd be exciting. I didn't know very much. I mean,
in those days, they told you virtually nothing, so I
think coming into it it was a bit more of
a punt than it would be today. I did think
about it, and because I thought about the issues which
(12:56):
you know are involved in it, you know, which are
quite difficult, involving a degree of deception, and so I
thought about it. But I think having done some conversations
and being encouraged by people, including my wonderful father who
was very you know, so straight down the line and
a man of towering integrity and had many friends within
(13:17):
the service, so I kind of felt that my mum
was cheering me on. So between that I decided to
give it a go.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
But the hesitation, I get the impression is not so
much then about living your life with secrecy as you
then had to do from most people. The deception as
in what did that mean?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, living a life of secrecy, as you put it,
requires a degree of deception because.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
You're not being honest with people around here.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, some close friends, members of the wider family are
not aware of what you're doing for a living, and
so yeah, you have to be comfortable with that along
with the character traits of Also, you know, if you're
desperate for recognition for what you do, this is not
the right professor to go into. You've got to be
satisfied with the intrinsic importance of the mission and the
(14:05):
motivating power of that mission. You've got to be satisfied
with the comradeship, the teamwork that goes with the people
who are in the know. But you can't go down
to the pub at the end of the week and
have a brag about it to your mates.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And you have to be ready for people to see
your life as a kind of boring desk job, a
lot of.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Them, indeed, including your children for the early part of
their lives, this gray man in the Foreign Office.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
When and how did you tell your children?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So it varies from family to family. It's a big
decision because once you tell them, of course, you're pulling
them within that circle of knowledge and you're putting something
on them. They then become complicit. So you think about it.
In our case, I think we decided when our kids
were in their kind of early mid teens, seemed the
right moment to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And the words you used were, well.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
It's really funny, Michelle, because here I was I remember
with my son. I can't tell the full story fundamentally,
you know, I should by that stage. I'm an experienced
intelligence officer. I have learned to pitch people, to put
the question to them, to try and say, will you know,
will you work with us? And I've been trained to
do that, completely and utterly messed it up with my
(15:14):
own son. So, first of all, Maggie and I made
the mistake of sitting there and looking slightly nervous and
solemn in front of him, so of course I could
see in his eyes he thought we were about to
announce our divorce. So then I started to gabble in
front of him and just sort of spewed out in
the end, and he kind of looked at him at
oh God, thank God for that, and said something which
is unprintable.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
But Maggie, your wife knew all along, because you've known
each other since you were very young.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yes, that's unusual. When I joined the Servers, albeit at
twenty four, we were already married by then, so it
was very much all of those you know, thinking through
the issues was done, of course, chatting it through with
Maggie as well. But think again of colleagues who do
begin over a man attachment and at some point they
(16:02):
too because I can't just say it on the first date.
At some point, they too have to find having you know,
checked in with the offers, with the servers, they have
to find the right time to say they might have
not have been entirely honest in that first phase of
the relationship, and.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
The relationship doesn't last, and you've got someone out there
in the right world.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Something really import they do. So if you're going to
split up, then do it as amically if possible, I
think would be the advice.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I want to ask about what spycraft is actually like
because look the time when you went into the service,
you will have read John McCarry and presumely in Fleming,
you know all of that kind of the classic things
people know. Was it actually like that?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So this is a terrible admission to make. But when
I came into the I hadn't read a single and
Fleming novel. So I'm desperately putting that right and reading
my way through them. I had read Lacarrey, I now
put Nick Heron right up there, and the Pantheon alongside
the carry I think books, Yeah, yeah, I have the
slow horses. But many people will be more familiar, perhaps
(17:05):
with the TV than they are the books, but the
books are fantastic, so there's just a massive difference. These
are works of fettion, works of creativity. Clearly, with la
Carrie there was you know, he spent a short period
in the service, so there was some very similitude, particularly
to those portraits of early Cold War Berlin and all
(17:25):
the rest of that. And you occasionally will see references
to tradecraft in them, and sometimes it's accurate and sometimes
it isn't. But look, it's very different. Of course, it's
very different in real life. But occasionally there is a
degree of intrigue and excitement which touches over into that world.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Isn't there a degree also of seeing the use in
people and then using them. When you identify people, you
are trying to work out how they can further Britain's
interests and trying to get to them in one way
or another.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You are clearly trying to forge a relationship with an
the human being because you need the secrets that they possess.
Yah And therefore that if you think through it means
you have to create a relationship of real intimacy and
trust with them because you're often asking them to take
risks in order to gather that intelligence and share it
(18:16):
with you, which are significant, and they won't do it
unless they can look at you and think this is
a person who is professional. They're going to be competent
in the managing of this relationship. And they will also
they'll be looking for something else. They'll be looking for
something they can trust, They'll be looking for the values
in that space. So yeah, it's very powerful because you
were about to enter into a relationship where there's a
(18:39):
huge amount at stake. I mean, sometimes the case officers
will be putting themselves in harms way in that relationship,
but nothing like that of the secret agent. The persons
agreed to do it.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And sometimes you're offering money or are you often offering money?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
What I can say on that space is very obviously,
when people are going to come and talk to you
and take those sort of risks, they're going to be
driven by different motivations, and our job is not to
be particularly judgmental frankly about those motivations, to try and
work out something that works for both parties. And if
(19:14):
that involves some financial conversation, yeah, yeah, of course we'll
do that.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
But I wonder whether it means that you start to
see people in a certain way, or whether you ever
worried about your perception of people. My grandfather worked in
intelligence for about a year. The reason he left it
was because he said he felt it made you suspicious
of everyone.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
So I think it's a really profoundly important point. And
when we're looking to recruit people the sort of people
who will be successful in this world, they have to
be really centered individuals, they have to really know themselves,
and they have to be very low ego because precisely
for those reasons, you are going to be bouncing up
(19:54):
against some really difficult ethical situations in this work. So
you'd better be very well.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
You mean, the people like you is not the agents
that you recruit in different countries.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I meant, I meant people within I sixter. Yes, absolutely,
they need to be in that place so that you
don't get what you're describing there as a sort of
you know, a drift over time into doing stuff that
you would have regarded as unacceptable. And therefore, you know,
people are very thoughtful. I mean, throughout my career, I've
really thought about these things. These things are important, and
(20:27):
we you know, within the organization, we give people space
to think through this. If people have personal crisis of
conscience on this, it's very important they come. You know,
that they work it out, you know, within the circle
of secrecy. As you can imagine.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Did you ever have an agent who you'd recruited and
developed who then was arrested or worse in another country.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, I'm going to distance it a bit from me
because I don't want to talk about things that I
did in case, because I'm very averse to give any
clues as to who might have worked with me and
the past. But of course, from time to time that
is bound to happen. You know, our commitment to people
is to keep them safe, and we will pendever backwards
(21:12):
to do that. But you know, in history, for reasons
sometimes unconnected with what MI I six does, circumstances will
lead to their arrest. And that's a very difficult moment
because we really, you know, we root for those people.
They are why we exist as a human intelligence service,
and it's very painful when it happens. But it doesn't
happen very often because we are very very careful.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And you have to be good readers of people. I
imagine when you reveal yourself to someone you.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Have to be very into and you have to you
definitely have to have that, and you have to have
the set of values which they recognize. If you get
a reputation of just using and abusing people, they're not
going to choose to come and talk to you, are they,
Or when you approach them, they're going to say a
very abrupt no. But they know with I six that
they will get care and attention and you know, will
(21:59):
look after them.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Then about something that might have been a test or
almost certainly was a test of exactly what you're saying,
And it's the period after nine to eleven when the
US and the UK worked very closely together. The US
carried out torture on detainees. We knew that from the
Feinstein led report, the US Senate report in twenty fourteen,
and the UK MPs found later on in their own
(22:23):
report went along with it.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
So I'm not sure I recognize the characterization you've just given.
I mean, we're clearly very close to the US. I
work through that period, including on difficult Cali terrorism work,
including in Islamabad. I was there when the very first
Al Qaeda bombs developed in back my daughter was in
(22:47):
a kindergarten whose windows were blurn in by a bomb
which exploded in the Egyptian embassy. So I was right
in the midst of all that, Michelle. And it's very
clear that the US administration at the time did whole
pile of things which were utterly unacceptable. You know, we
will know about waterboarding, you.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Know, which is did you know about it at the time.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
No, because they were very, very careful to exclude us.
They absolutely did not tell their UK counterpartment.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
See, that's not really what came out in the MP's
report here in the UK after three years of looking
into it. Their finding was that the UK tolerated inexcusable
treatment of US detainees and that did involve waterboarding, stress positions,
sleep deprivation, being in coffin sized boxes. And the mp
sais beyond doubt that the UK knew how the US
(23:37):
handled some detainees.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
So I'm not sure I agree with beyond doubt in
those terms because I was there and they were not.
Their description of the activity is perfectly valid. I agree
with it, and we, of course, let's be clear, we
deal with partners around the world to employ methods that
we would not countenance and we're very careful that in
(24:00):
our engagement with them that we do not facilitate or
enhance that type of behavior.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
The MPs were pretty thorough. British agencies continue to supply
intelligence despite knowing or suspecting abuse in more than two hundred.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I'm Michelle, I'm not We're taking into slightly different areas.
You know, did the relationship continue with the Americans and
therefore did we pass material as described by the MP's
Undoubtedly where the lessons learned about that. Absolutely, there is
now an entire compliance process around us led by the
Investigatory Powers Commission. That doesn't happen unless one recognizes that
(24:37):
there are mistakes made. So let me I mean, I
don't want to give the impression that I'm not accepting
I am. I'm just saying, you know, we were starting
about individuals and where they were individually, and I'm trying
to make the point that as individual officers, including me
at the time, No, I did not realize that my
US counterpart was involved in that type of activity. Otherwise
(25:00):
I would have not approached it in the same way
you know it might I you know, you know, is
there an argument that we should have been better earlier
at working out that things were going on that we
would not do. Yeah, of course I accept that completely.
I'm not trying to resist that. I was just trying
to resist any kind of implication that individuals within mi
I six were complicit in this, because if they had been,
(25:23):
they would be in jail. And not a single six
officer has been prosecuted for this, and I'm very proud
of that. That's not because they weren't caught, Michelle, It's
because they have that set of values that I described earlier.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
On Can we bring it up to the present day,
then sure. If you grab those headphones, I want to
(25:55):
play you a little of a very striking appearance that
you made while you were in office at m when
you appeared on a stage with the Ft with your
then US counterpart, indeed, William Burns, And this is part
of what you said.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I think our partnership does matter enormously to both of
our services, but I think also to both of our countries.
We have no better foreign partner in the world. My
agency doesn't than sas.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
We will share more with each other than we will
do with anyone else because of the high levels of
trust that built up over many many years, as partship
goes back in one form or another over a century.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
So that was you in September twenty twenty four. Indeed,
what were the last nine months of your service? Like
with the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So Bill moved out, of course, it was a wonderful colleague,
Bill Burns, and one of the great sort of public
servants of the US in recent decades. And he was
replaced by a general called John Ratcliffe, who has been
an excellent partner. And clearly, you get changes of administration
in Washington, you get changes of government in the UK,
(27:02):
and in my case rather too many, leaving aside the politics,
just the sheer number of prime ministers foreign secretaries that
I dealt with in my five years. So that moves on.
But the partnership remains the most critical one for our
two nations, and the people called upon to steward that relationship.
The chief of m I six and the Director of
CIA worked very, very hard on that relationship.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Are you suggesting there's been no change at all, because
there was a very obvious practical change wherein March the
US suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine for a bit, So
that was an indication of a very different era. William
Burns himself has characterized this period in the US as
being a really difficult one. It's that the sacking of officials,
(27:46):
including intelligence officials, has been about retribution rather than reform.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
What I can say on that is that the relationship
continues to be a really important and strong one and
I work really hard on it. You know, all relationships evolve,
they change, the personalities change, the policies change, and you know,
when you're a chief of N six you deal with
the world as it is and get.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
On with it. It helped me understand how it evolved in
this period because clearly Russia and Ukraine, China, these are
all present threats and issues. How do they evolve in
these nights your.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Influence, don't you so? Ukraine is a good example where
you know, we have very clear views in the UK
about prosecuting that war and how to support the Ukrainians,
and you know, our voice is one that is listened
to in Washington. So things change move around a bit,
that's the style of the current administration, but we are
always there and it's our responsibility to use that to
(28:40):
convey exactly what the intelligence is telling us, and it's
telling us for example, that Pujin has no intention of
doing a deal, that this is not an issue for
him purely of territory. This is about dominating Ukraine and
turning Ukraine into something he looks rather like it's neighbor Belarus.
So all of that stuff we talked to the Americans
about all the time, and I think you can sometimes
(29:01):
he has no intention of fact.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Doing a deal flooding with Putin. If he has no
intention of doing a deal, then how do you see
this ending this.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
At the moment under current conditions. Well, I'm basing this
on access as I had a few weeks ago to
our understanding of the intelligence on it, and that is
that he's not ready to do a deal. So for me,
the answer to that is he needs to be put
under more pressure so he is prepared to do a deal.
The president of Ukraine is clearly ready to do a deal.
He's remarkably in the pursuit of peace, prepared to give
(29:31):
a way up to twenty percent of his country de facto,
and yet Putin is not. So what's going to change
that more pressure on the battlefield. Ukrainians have an undercapitalized
defense industry. They have spare capacity that cash would solve.
There is more that we can give them. There is
more that we can give them in terms of permission
(29:51):
to use long range weaponry, for example. There's all of that,
as well as giving them the sort of you know,
the basics of air defense and all that. And there's
an opportunity to put a lot more pressure on Putin
at home. And I don't pretend that that is going
to give immediate results. One of the things I would
say in this space is we have to be patient.
We have to be prepared to see this off. And
(30:12):
I talked about this, including with Bill and on that
occasion that you gave us the quote from the just
seminal importance of this for the Western Alliance that we
do not lose this contest of wills.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So you've told me your reading of President Putin. What
about your reading of President Trump? Why does he give
Putin the red carpet welcome?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Michelle. The wonderful thing about the job I had the
honor of doing is that we spy on Putin, but
we don't spy on our American allies. So there are
other people who would be better qualified than me to
comment on us politics.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Right, just about your the reading of him from your experience,
not about inside information? Why is he so generous to
President Putin?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
What I would say on that is, I do recognize
in President Trump a genuine commitment to peace. I mean,
he clearly finds the horrors of war as witnessed in
Ukraine or indeed in Gaza apparent, and he is determined
to bring it to an end. My job is to
inform my own Prime minister and then to you know,
(31:18):
discuss with the Director of CIA. As I was saying,
the picture we have of what's driving Putin and so
you know, I think there has been an evolution of
thinking in the administration about Putin. And clearly Putin is
trying to play us. You know, he's he's an intelligence officer, Michelle,
I recognize the type. He's trying to maneuver us into
a place which is convenient for him, and we need
(31:39):
to pin him down and not allow him that maneuverability.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
You're painting a picture of a still long war ahead.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I think I don't know. You know that I was
paid to steel secrets, not solved mysteries, so I don't
know how long it would be. But it's just so
so important that we don't lose this contest of worlds,
not just because of what that does inside Putin and
other senior Russian minds and what it might invite in
(32:07):
terms of opportunistic testing of our defenses, some of which
we've seen in recent weeks, but also because President she
is watching this really carefully, and the Chinese leadership has
evolved a sort of narrative of Western weakness really ever
since the international financial crisis, and there's a real danger
that it be sees US being weak on Ukraine, then
(32:31):
he will draw conclusions from that on his own behaviors
around the South China see and potentially on Taiwan.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Have those two countries, Russian China been pushed closer together
by America's actions this year? Remember those images in Shanghai
and Beijing with Vladimir Putin and Si jinping together and
Kim Jong un as well.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I don't think it's been pushed together by the US.
They have been pushed together by their alliance around particularly
and Ukraine. It's a very unequal arrangement. But Putin has
become increasingly dependent on Chinese support, and although the Chinese
have not given the Russian some of the more sophisticated
(33:13):
end of weaponry. It is the case that they have
been very helpful with what things are called dual use things.
None of those things which might have a civil and
a military application, so to chemicals in those shells are
mostly Chinese. A lot of the components in the missile
ray are Chinese. They might I don't know for all
I know, they might be good in a washing machine,
but they are certainly a missile. So it's very clear
(33:34):
that Putin has become more and more dependent, and of
course the Ranians and the North Koreans have also helped
them out, so there has been a tightening of that
group of four people to do bad stuff together.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
The other day, on an episode of this podcast, I
spoke to the Venezuelan peace Laurriate Maria Garina Machado, and
this is an ongoing situation in the Caribbean where the
US has for the last couple of months been carrying
out st on boat, saying that they were drug smugglers
on board. You've grappled with so many issues of this kind.
(34:07):
You've lived through a time of drone strikes in places
like Afghanistan. What do you think when you look at
that situation in the Caribbean.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Well, I really am not across it, Michelle, and it's not,
you know, compared to some other issues and areas, one
which is in the forefront of British interests and things.
So I don't know, I genuinely don't know on what
the US are basing these strikes. But you know you
made the reference to Afghanistan and to drone strikes, and
(34:37):
in extremers only, we would always prefer to arrest people
and put them in front of a court. But in
certain parts of the world, at certain times, people who
would do you harm, particularly in our case terrorists, you know,
you can't reach them. And there are bits of Somalia
that that's probably true for and there were certainly were
that bits of Afghanistan in those days, and in extremists.
(35:00):
Ministers might authorize a lethal operation like a drone strike
in order to remove a threat. But when you do that, again,
it has to be within UK law, and UK law
requires things to be necessary and proportionate to the threat posed,
and there's usually a strong it's as a very legalistic word,
in imminence. In other words, it's not just a threat
(35:20):
might be vaguely materialized in twenty years time. It has
to feel real and now. So that's the basis on
which we would proceed. And I really can't comment on
what's happening in Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Can we talk closer to home about politicians in Europe?
And I'm thinking of two in particular who have been
accused of echoing Russian talking points on Ukraine and who
might be perceived as soft on Russia, who certainly faced
those accusations. One is Nigel Farat, who might be the
next UK Prime minister, and the other is Marine le Pen.
(35:52):
Would you have concerns about either of those people being
elected to those offices.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Michelle, I've spent thirty eight years being devotedly nonpartisan and
I will, of course, I'm not about to throw that
habit out of the window. My job is very simple
on this, and my job was very simple on this,
which is to give advice based on good intelligence about
what Putin is actually intending. And that's what I would do,
(36:18):
and that's what my success will do, regardless of who's
the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. I come back
to what is the job of the Chief of m
I six, it's to serve the government of the day,
within the law and beying UK law, and that's what
you do. You get on with it and you provide
truth to power. So again one of the things the
Chief does frequently is appear in front of the Prime
(36:39):
Minister and the Foreign Secretary and sometimes tell them things
they really really don't want to hear, particularly if it's
a Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So when you step away from all of that as
you have, now, what is the decompression like, Because what
you're describing is I mean, it must affect every area
of your life. I imagine you can't really do a
job like that without devoting every probably every waking hour
to it.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I didn't worry about things I couldn't change the starters.
And the thing that I would focus a lot on
is around our own business, the business of human intelligence,
work of keeping that going in a world where you know,
the tools of surveillance, way to gain, you know, used
against you, are pretty sophisticated. So the thing that I
(37:22):
would worry most is that are we going to stay
in this game? Are we going to keep being good
enough at our methodology, our trade craft to keep in
this game? Are we going to get the right technology
fast enough to stay in the game.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
So is it much more about technology than the human
factor now compared to the way you Well.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
It's both. It's just not binary at all. So you
need great technology, and AI helps us enormously in interrogating
vast amounts of data and perhaps helping us to find
somebody who might be prepared to help us. At the
same time, you can see in China that this surveillance
state is pretty well advanced, and a lot of that
technology makes its way overseas, and so so you know
(38:00):
how to be Beijing, you might encounter that in Dubai
or in other cities. So we have a very mindful
of the capabilities that are deployed against us. So I
worried about that. I worried whether we'd stay on top
of the game. I'm glad to report I think we are.
But it's a bit of an arms race. It's a
thing you know, you have to continue to do. And
one of the reasons I decided that we needed to
be a little bit more open about ourselves and speak
about our mission a bit more was partly because I
(38:22):
wanted to engage technology outside government, because they would often
have the solutions that would help us in that space, you.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Mean the open Ayes and the Googles of this.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
World, everything from the really big defense or tech companies
to the woman doing something in her garage to invent
something utterly brilliant, and both of them. Actually, in some ways,
the bigger companies were easier to reach. We had some
structures for doing that. We would clear members of their
teams so they could see some of the secret staff.
But if you were a small startup, that's not your world.
(38:54):
And if we were to wait and say, you know,
we need to put you through security vetting. You know
these people or start up make their billion and then
go out of business, don't they in the time it
would take us to go through a vetting process.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So it happened. Did you manage to do some kind
of fast.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Track, done some great stuff both HMGCC, which the horrible
acronym I apologize for it, but it is basically our
National Security Engineering Hub. You know, if you are a
Bond fan, I suppose it's the nearest we have to
q Labs sits in Milton Keen, and they'd be much
more open about their mission and their technology. And you
can now go to a building near the Milton key
(39:28):
station and you can literally walk in and talk about
some of the technology. That's one thing. And the second thing.
A few years ago under Alex Younger, my predecessor, we
decided to get into the venture capital side. So there's
a thing called the National Security Strategic Investment Fund and
it looks at technologies which might not quite make it
left purely to the commercial side, but by if you
(39:49):
like having a UK intelligence community in promateur on a
particular bit of technology, it often excites the interests of
private adventure capital and they bring in and we've got
some like a forty percent. They call it a pull
through rate, So of the technologies that are invested in,
forty percent of the end up being used in the organization.
And that's a big change.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
So what's life on the outside feel like?
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I think, if you're going to do these jobs, you
do them for five years, and you do actually have
to look after yourself. And I had an extraordinary institution
under me, and you can delegate and you know, a
brilliant directors general the next level below me in the organization,
and I could walk away and have a HOLI day. Clearly,
if something massive blew up, then you come home but
by allies, you could do that. I'm also, i think,
(40:32):
a reasonably calm person, and so I'm not a big fretter.
I think you don't want to worry her in this job.
So you know, the last six weeks, I think a
lot of friends are looking for me to sort of
look totally transformed, but I don't feel that way. I
had a very nice holiday with Maggie and in Tuscany,
which we really enjoyed, and then we came back and
I'm sort of thinking about what I might do next.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
There's a vacancy for investor in washing, not.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
For me, there isn't. I wish whoever takes on that
role the best of luck and grant candidate so easily.
I say it so easily because of course I've given
a lot of thought and I made a decision. So
it's easy. Then why But why? Because I think there
are people better qualified than me to do the job.
And after five years of a really reasonably intensive, intense job,
(41:15):
I'm ready to do some other things, including say a
bit more of my grandson and and the other stuff.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Richard Moore, thank you very.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Much, Thanks very much, Michelle.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
And that's the Michelle Hussein show for this week. If
you haven't already subscribed, please do. You'll always know as
soon as we have a new episode. That way, if
you've left us a comment, even given us some stars,
thank you. You can watch these conversations on YouTube and
on Bloomberg TV, and you'll find the written version with
my notes at Bloomberg dot com Slash Weekend. The team
(41:52):
is producers Jessica Beck and Chris Martin. You guest booking
by Dave Warren, Social media by Alex Morgan. This week
our sound engineer was Richard Ward. Video editing was by
Laura Francis. The executive producer is Louisa Lewis at Bloomberg Weekend.
Editorial Director of Audio and Special Projects is Brendan Francis Newnham,
(42:14):
and our executive editor is Catherine Bell Bart Walshaw composed
our music and this week's special Thanks go to Alex
Wickham and Brendan Scott, as well as Alana Susnow, Summersadi
and Sage Bauman, and of course thanks to you for listening.
Please come back next Weekend
Hosts And Creators
Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
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