From the late 1980s until 2010, I organised regular short briefings on international security for successive leaders of the UK Labour Party. They were also circulated among the party’s frontbench speakers on defence, foreign affairs and international development.
These briefings, which included contributions from other academics, were voluntary, pro bono and unofficial, and were able to be critical of existing party policy, being fully deniable if made public.
Shortly after Labour won the 1997 election, David Miliband, who was Tony Blair’s head of policy at No 10, agreed to my continuing them as regular monthly contributions. By 2001, the circulation list had grown to around 30 people: in No 10, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development (DFID), plus special advisers and one or two individual parliamentarians. I have been told they were shared with staff at DFID and that one director-general of MI5 saw them. I was never in any way an insider, nor sought to be. Usually, I had a contact among the political staff at No 10, and would meet them there occasionally for coordination purposes.
