The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times, which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently, and have only had common ownership since 1966.
The Independent is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition.
John Dennis "Jack" Profumo, CBE, OBE (Mil.) was a British politician whose career ended in 1963 after a sexual relationship with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler in 1961. The scandal, which became known as the Profumo affair, led to his resignation from the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan.
Lieutenant-General Bernard Cyril Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg, was a British-born New Zealand soldier and Victoria Cross recipient, who served as the 7th Governor-General of New Zealand from 1946 to 1952.
The Morning Star is a left-wing British daily newspaper with a focus on social, political and trade union issues, and is both the largest and longest-running socialist newspaper in Britain. Originally founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), ownership was transferred from the CPGB to an independent readers' co-operative in 1945. The paper was then renamed and reinvented as the Morning Star in 1966. The paper describes its editorial stance as in line with Britain's Road to Socialism, the programme of the Communist Party of Britain.
Peter Hugh Dennis is an English comedian, presenter, actor, writer, impressionist and voice-over artist, who is one half of Punt and Dennis with comedy partner Steve Punt. He played Pete Brockman, the father in the BBC One sitcom Outnumbered and since 2014 he has played Toby in the long-running sitcom Not Going Out.
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (rezident) and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1974 to 1985. After being recalled to Moscow under suspicion, he was exfiltrated from the USSR in July 1985 under a plan code-named Operation Pimlico. The USSR subsequently sentenced him to death in absentia.
Spooks is a British television spy drama series that originally aired on BBC One from 13 May 2002 to 23 October 2011, consisting of 10 series. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid. It is notable for various stylistic touches, and its use of popular guest actors. In the United States, the show is broadcast under the title MI-5. In Canada, the programme originally aired as MI-5 but now airs on BBC Canada as Spooks.
David Shayler is a British former MI5 officer and whistle-blower. Shayler was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act 1989 for passing secret documents to The Mail on Sunday in August 1997 that alleged that MI5 was paranoid about socialists, and that it had previously investigated Labour Party ministers Peter Mandelson, Jack Straw and Harriet Harman.
Helen Patricia Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC is a British chemist and astronaut who became the first British person, first Western European woman and first privately funded woman in space, as well as the first woman to visit the Mir space station, in May 1991.
Richard John Charles Tomlinson is a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He argued that he was subjected to unfair dismissal from MI6 in 1995, and attempted to take his former employer to a tribunal. MI6 refused, arguing that to do so would breach state security.
Major Francis "Frank" Edward Foley CMG was a British Secret Intelligence Service officer. As a passport control officer for the British embassy in Berlin, Foley "bent the rules" and helped thousands of Jewish families escape from Nazi Germany after Kristallnacht and before the outbreak of the Second World War. He is officially recognised as a British Hero of the Holocaust and as a Righteous Among the Nations.
The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamist terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the morning rush hour.
Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased The Sydney Morning Herald in 1841. The Fairfax family retained control of the business until late in the 20th century.
Daphne Margaret Sybil Désirée Park, Baroness Park of Monmouth CMG, OBE, FRSA was a British spy. During her career as a clandestine senior controller in MI6 (1943–1993) she was stationed in Austria (1946-1948), Moscow (1954–1956), the Congo (1959–1961), Zambia (1964–1967) and Hanoi (1969–1971).
Sir Harry Ernest Brittain, KBE, CMG was a British journalist and Conservative politician.
The Daily Telegraph, known online and elsewhere as The Telegraph, is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
Sir Sidney Barton was a British barrister and diplomat, serving as consul-general in Shanghai and as minister to Ethiopia.
Sir Alexander William Younger is a former career British intelligence officer for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) who served as the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, succeeding Sir John Sawers on his retirement. In April 2019, the government extended Younger's contract to maintain stability through the Brexit negotiations, a move which made him the longest-serving MI6 chief in 50 years.
