[A-List] UK (secret) state: political realignment

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Private Eye

No. 1068, 29 November-12 December 2002

HP Sauce

The Liberal Democrats have gained quite a prize in former Tory MP Harold
Elletson, who announced his defection two weeks ago.

"I realised that the values of progressive conservatism do not depend on the
Conservative Party," the Old Etonian ex-member for Blackpool North told the
Daily Telegraph. "If the party is incapable of espousing them, then people
like me are going to look for other parties that will." Charles Kennedy was
understandably delighted, describing Elletson as "one of a growing number of
disillusioned Conservatives who realised that the Lib Dems stood for many of
the things they care about."

But before the Lib Dems crack open the bubbly and find him a winnable seat,
they should examine what Elletson cares about rather more closely. He was
the most outspoken parliamentary supporter of Slobodan Milosevic in the
1990s, describing Margaret Thatcher's defence of Bosnia as "beneath
contempt". In December 1992 he made the first of at least four trips to
Yugoslavia as a guest of the Serbian president -- at a time when, under
Paddy Pantsdown, the Lib Dems were the most pro-Bosnian party in parliament.

Meanwhile his private company Harold Elletson Ltd, was retained by several
large corporations -- BP, Rothmans, Omega Oil and Gas -- to help with
projects in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In 1998 he wrote a
hagiography of the Russian "strongman" General Alexander Lebed, another
unlikely hero for someone who proclaims his allegiance to "progressive
values". More curiously still, the book included highly sympathetic
portraits of the authoritarian communists who staged the coup against
Gorbachev in August 1991.

There is another detail about Harold Elletson of which the Liberal Democrats
may be unaware, though it was revealed by the Observer in December 1996: he
also moonlighted as an MI6 agent. When Elletson became an MP in 1992, John
Major personally authorised the intelligence service to continue using him
as a "secret contact". Is he still working for the spooks? No doubt the Lib
Dems will wish to find out.