Pauline Neville-Jones

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones was Chairman of QinetiQ Group PLC (2002-05)International Governor, BBC (1998-2004); HM Diplomatic Service (1963-96); Head of Planning Staff, FCO (1983-87); Deputy Secretary, Cabinet Office (1991-94); Deputy Under Secretary of State and Political Director, FCO (1994-96) and a Governor, the Ditchley Foundation.

Neville-Jones has a high profile in the UK media, usually commenting on military and intelligence issues despite having had various highly profitable directorships in the defence industry. Her position as chair of scandal-ridden Qinetiq and its relationship to her intervention in the reporting of the Iraq war were made manifest in her role in planning the removal of Greg Dyke as an overseer of the BBC.

In May 2010 Neville Jones was appointed Minister for Security for the new UK coalition government, having previously served as Shadow Security Minister and National Security Adviser to the Leader of the Opposition since 2006.

She is involved with networks such as the Centre for European Reform that bring together Atlanticist, New Labour, neoliberal and neoconservative elements in a well-funded (including Shell, Lockheed Martin, BP and J.P. Morgan) and promoted EU military-industrial lobby. Neville-Jones’ proximity to the neoconservative network is best illustrated by her membership of the organising committee of the US Intelligence Summit.

The Intelligence Summit

The Executive Council of the Intelligence Summit are:

• Lt. General Tom McInerney, US Air Force, (Ret.)

• Cdr. Richard Marcinko, Navy SEALs Commander

• Dame Pauline Neville-Jones

• Major General Paul Vallely, US Army, (Ret.)

Its (2005) INTELCON National Intelligence Conference and Exposition, included in its Program Advisory Group: Michael Ledeen, Walid Phares, Daniel Pipes, Harold Rhode and other neoconservatives.Neville-Jones, speaking shortly after Ledeen, shared her platform with Sir John Chilcot (now in charge of the government's unpromising enquiry into the Iraq war).

Summit organisers, Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney and Major General Paul Vallely, seem to dominate the Summit’s programme and have executive control over it. They, like many of the Summit’s speakers and organisers act as commentators for Fox News and other outlets amenable to the US government’s methods of news management. The Summit’s tendency to extol the importance of their ex-Generals’ frequent media appearances backfired somewhat with the eventual 2008 New York Times revelations of collusion with the Pentagon’s propaganda operation to control and distort the public’s view of the war.

The New York Times obtained internal Pentagon documents that repeatedly referred to military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions” to frame how viewers ought to interpret events. This was part of a strategic decision, made in 2002 to make the analysts “the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war.”

The New York Times stated that the plans had several other components, such as in the summer of 2005, when the Pentagon’s information apparatus’ communications experts flew a group of ex-Generals and others to Guantánamo Bay as part of a media offensive to counter a fresh wave of criticism over “the gulag of our times” as Amnesty International termed Camp X-Ray. The largest contingent of what became known as the ‘Pentagon Pundits’ were affiliated with Fox News, and, when arguing that the group, personally selected by Donald Rumsfeld, “was heavily represented by men involved in the business of helping companies win military contracts,” the New York Times named the Summit’s General McInerney. In connection to Bush’s national security team’s belief that pessimistic war coverage broke the nation’s will to win in Vietnam, it names the Summit’s Paul E. Vallely:

‘This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from “enemy” propaganda during Vietnam. “We lost the war — not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped,” he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars — taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach “MindWar” — using network TV and radio to “strengthen our national will to victory.”’

When several retired Generals did criticise Rumsfeld’s conduct of the war, Pentagon officials helped the Summit’s McInerney and Vallely write an opinion article for the April 17, 2006 Wall Street Journal defending Rumsfeld — but the collusion leaked to the press.

Most of the Summits organisers, and many of their speakers made up the 'Pentagon Pundits', The summit’s Wayne Simmons, formerly with the CIA, still writes about what a square deal the inhabitants of Guantánamo Bay are getting; something that he witnessed first hand after being taken there as a “military observer for terrorist arraignments,” and previously he had “spent two days in 2005 and 2006 visiting with General Jay Hood and Admiral Harry Harris.” After dismissing or insulting the other observers (from NGO’s such as Amnesty International) who attended and describing how a prisoner is “shackled and forcibly brought to the courthouse” against his will, we are requested not to have any sympathy even while he states that it is children we are fighting against and that whatever remaining ‘rights’ the ‘detainees’ have:

“Were it up to me, these rights would be secondary to extracting the truth from these barbarians’ and getting it out in public.”

This is Wayne Simmons writing in ‘Human Events’, the right-wing home of [[Jihad Watch] that also publishes McInerney and many of the others previously mentioned. And Simmons was also listed as one of the Pentagon Pundits by the Times. Indeed he was also an attendee at a meeting of April 18, 2006, with several military analysts and the then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that co-ordinated and actually described the propaganda project as the “Psyop” after laughing at the U.S. constitution, as can be heard on a recording of the meeting:

UNIDENTIFIED 1: I’m an old intel guy, and I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. And that is “psyops.” Now, most people, when they hear that, they think, “Oh my God —

RUMSFELD: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: — “they’re trying to brainwash [inaudible].”

RUMSFELD: “What are you, some kind of nut? You don’t believe in the Constitution?”

UNIDENTIFIED 2: Well, he is. [laughter]

The same voice offers its services for “parroting” Rumsfeld’s line adding:

“And we’d love to be following our leader, as indeed you are. You are the leader. You are our guy”.

The participants list mentions only one “old intel guy,” and that is Simmons, formerly of the CIA, who it should also be mentioned is part of the group, possibly better named ‘Pentagon Parrots,’ who denied the Times’ allegations.

The Times investigation elicited the release of documentation involved in the operation and The Heritage Foundation is mentioned in the transcripts of emails used in the planning for the Pentagon Parrots as a pliant venue for the propaganda:

“heritage is looking at putting some kind of event together on gitmo (in short order) and wanted to know if we were ok with them inviting steve to present.”

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones also gave a 'Keynote Address' to the Summit on February 9, 2005, 'A look at the special relationship: policy and intelligence' and Chilcot spoke again on 'Jointness: The New IC Buzzword'

The Rot Plot

In her position as a governor of the BBC what annoyed her about the organisation’s performance in the ‘war on terror’ was not the catalogue of errors or war-profiteering and mongering (arguably her stock-in-trade) but paranoid interpretations of the children's programme Newsround’s statement that the 9/11 attacks may have some connection to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle-East. Newsround (aimed at viewers aged between six and twelve) had answered questions concerning 9/11, such as “Why did they do it” by saying:

“The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al Qaeda — who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks.”

This was then amended to:

“Al Qaeda is unhappy with America and other countries getting involved in places like the Middle East. People linked to al Qaeda have used violence to make this point in the U.S.A, and in other countries.”

Neville-Jones asked —in a rather remote way for an overseer —“Is the BBC so naive as to take al Qaeda’s propaganda at face value? Or is there something more sinister at work here?” She also described an “ugly undercurrent,” adding in a confused manner [emphasis added]:

“Al Qaeda make the manifestly false claim that America is part of an enormous Jewish-Christian conspiracy to dominate the world and kill Muslims. This is no secret — Osama bin Laden has said as much himself. We know that in the long run the struggle against terrorists is a battle for hearts and minds […] Just two days after the [2001] attacks the BBC screened an edition of the Question Time programme where they invited an anti-American audience that laid into the American ambassador, leaving him close to tears. In fairness, the BBC apologised for that outrage. Even though this was an appalling example of knee-jerk prejudice, at least it was meant for adults. I never imagined the rot would spread to the BBC’s children’s programmes. I was wrong.”

She is also quoted in the Daily Mail as saying: “Is the BBC really saying that if you’re ‘unhappy’ it’s quite normal behaviour to murder people?” No, clearly the BBC is not saying this in this context— but what she also joined to this conspiracy theory was the appearance on BBC’s Question Time of former US ambassador to Britain, Philip Lader who was allegedly reduced to tears because members of the audience expressed their opinions.

Lader, who can be hired from The Harry Walker Agency “Noted for his humor, in-depth preparation and inspirational style”, has quite a business portfolio: the chairman of the WPP Group, the Atlantic Council, Morgan Stanley, a director of RAND Corporation, Marathon Oil and a Patron of the British American Project. Before entering government service, he was executive vice president of the company managing the late Sir James Goldsmith’s US holdings. One of the overlooked problems with the ‘tears’ is that WPP now own Hill and Knowlton, notorious for their covert endeavours devised to swing American public opinion in favour of war. Hill and Knowlton arranged for the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US to appear as an ordinary Kuwaiti girl crying her eyes out in front of the US Congress to testify that:

“Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.”

Essentially, Neville-Jones’ opportunistic charge is that Question Time’s production staff (and presumably David Dimbleby as the ring-leader) arranged a conspiracy involving the deliberate selection of a heartless anti-American mob (which given the planning of Question Time is suggestive of prior knowledge of the attacks) to orchestrate their own ‘outrage,’ under the guise of the freedom of expression of opinions contrary to those of a representative of a Military Industrial Complex who seeks to influence the climate of political opinion in the UK covertly. She finds this linked (although no evidence of causality is provided) to Newsround’s people, who are even more depraved and corrupt and willingly entangled in “something more sinister at work” in the form of a vicious Al Qaeda plot to deliberately target children. From there the phenomena which, attributed to some kind of unspecified epidemiological ‘rot’ that presumably only she is immune from, spread to the entire BBC and from thence to the general public, although no one else has noticed this and many, including the Security Services themselves, link the London bombings to US foreign policy.

Let us pause for thought and compare her allegations concerning Question Time to the reality of the Key Note address of her Intelligence Summit delivered by Louis Rene Beres: this called for the annihilation of an entire nation (Iran) on the basis of the rationale of ‘Anticipatory Self-Defense,’ a concept which of course anyone including Al Qaeda could argue in an attempt to justify any attacks on anyone anywhere at any time. ‘Strategic and Military Affairs’ columnist for The Jewish Press (and member of Rachel Ehrenfeld’s the Center For The Study Of Corruption And The Rule Of Law) this key note speech set the tone of the purpose of the Summit for us thus:

“What about a suicide-bomber in macrocosm —an entire state willing to “die” in order to fulfill a presumed religious “obligation?” Think Iran. What would this do to the logic of deterrence? How would we have to respond if we were to suddenly recognize a fusion of nuclear capacity with irrationality? One obvious consideration: A heightened reasonableness of preemption. But more on this in a later panel that I will chair, on Project Daniel.”

For Neville-Jones the ringleader in the rot plot would appear to have been Greg Dyke, the former BBC Director-general, whom she helped to remove in her capacity as a BBC governor after publication of the Hutton report. What she thinks we should be teaching the children and allowed to watch on television ‘debates’ as adults (although the debate side of that will have to go) was alluded to in a Sunday Times interview:

“But she seems genuinely misty-eyed about the good old days: “In the 19th century the fathers of the nation had the Children’s Reader series in the new compulsory schools” — “kings and things” taught them what “made them Brits”. Once “we sang Rule Britannia” without embarrassment: “We have become apologetic about what it is to be British.””

Neville-Jones quit the Foreign Office, rather unpatriotically accusing it of sexism after being snubbed for the job of ambassador to France according to the (2001) Telegraph: yet we have this empty longing for a return to the patriarchal ethos of the 19th century. Historically these 19th century elites contained what a more clear-eyed view might perceive as dangerously psychopathic, with sexist or racist elements causing physical and moral revulsion rather than ‘embarrassment’. How would Neville-Jones turn Question Timeinto a compulsory sing-along celebrating our Empire and all of its exploits?

But beneath the contemporary doublespeak of post modernism and perception management can be detected some kind of atavistic macabre fantasy that teachers of the future should abandon rationality and read out narratives from 19th century instructional texts to once again encourage support for the conquest of any country that stood in the way of the Empire and a religious crusade. Dissenters will be modelled and shaped as ‘Brits’ by singing songs about our glorious past to start off Question Time, now re-modelled as Narrative Time, where US Ambassadors from big business are entertained by a more appropriate subservient tune to — what: celebrate the British Empire?

In her address to those allowed into the Conservative’s Blackpool conference she set out a bit more of this neo-imperialist vision:

“And Despite what Brown and Blair have done, Britain still has tremendous assets which we can bring to the world. Vibrant Parliamentary Democracy. Our tradition of international aid and voluntary giving; [a]nd the best Armed Forces in the World.”

Her solution is a strengthened international co-operation between intelligence agencies and to set up a ‘National Security Council,’ a process also linked to 'Securing our Energy Supplies'. Such a Council would be based on the US model and equate “national security” with the security of the power elite, and most likely go on to establish methods designed to protect elite decision-makers from public scrutiny and subsequent accountability. Although he argued that the power elite, by their very nature are more likely to use existing organizations, C. Wright Mills also stated:

“… if there is no machinery in existence to ensure, for example, that military and political factors will be balanced in decisions made, they will invent such machinery and use it, as with the National Security Council. Moreover, in a formally democratic polity, the aims and the powers of the various elements of this elite are further supported by an aspect of the permanent war economy: the assumption that the security of the nation supposedly rests upon great secrecy of plan and intent. Many higher events that would reveal the working of the power elite can be withheld from public knowledge under the guise of secrecy. With the wide secrecy covering their operations and decisions, the power elite can make their intentions, operations, and further consolidation. Any secrecy that is imposed upon those in positions to observe high decision-makers clearly works for and not against the operations of the power elite.”

Neville-Jones’ plans have largely unspecified connections to the unaccountable world of the Secret Intelligence Services, themselves beyond even a ‘vibrant’ parliamentary democracy, not that there is any evidence that she believes this should be put into practice. In a move which came alongside the work of Dean Godson and the Policy Exchange, Neville-Jones, in a Sunday Times interview, offered her a different view of Councils, in the case of the Muslim Council of Britain:

“The council has (belatedly) condemned the Heathrow and Glasgow airport terror plots. Perhaps it and some ministers want to resume the dialogue. Neville-Jones smiles thinly: “I was glad to see the condemnation of the atrocities but no group [of people] in this country should work through representatives.” She wants to reach out to Muslims as individuals, not through self-appointed community leaders.”

She argued the exact reverse of her stated position on the Muslim Council of Britain on The Politics Show, Sunday 4 February 2007, 12.10 GMT, BBC One:

“I think we will have a proper dialogue with the Muslim Council of Britain. I mean we have promised each other a proper dialogue and I do think that it’s very important actually that the Muslim Council of Britain, which isn’t an umbrella organization, they will say we don’t represent everybody, but they are quite important. It is very important they give a lead.”</ref>

Where would her idea of a National Security Council be if they had to stand for election? If no groups should work through representatives — how does that relate to the Conservative Party’s raison d’être to become democratic representatives? And what is Neville-Jones’ promise of ‘reaching out’ to each individual other than a Crackpot notion put alongside her associations with those intelligence operatives who seek to construct “self-appointed community leaders” in the case of Michael Ledeen’s ‘Secular Islam Summit,’ ran as part of the Intelligence Summit; not to mention her other war-profit organisations and their public relations smoke screen. But her task in trying to gather fellow disgruntled remnants from the Carlton Club into a Council of Crackpot Realists, and her American Intelligence colleague’s attempts to talk to representatives of their own choice seems a massive self-delusion. The outward part of this delusion requires the tone of the overseer.

She is the principle source of a 2005 BBC News online report, 'No confidence in intelligence services'. This set out that a year after the Hutton report into the death of Dr David Kelly, there was still a lack of confidence in the intelligence services both in Britain and the US. Her testimony aids in the assertion that in the words of former Foreign Secretary, David Owen, which the article quotes: “The joint intelligence committee machinery, which I have known well and respected, was corrupted in the run-up to that war in a way which will leave damage for decades to come.” Here Neville-Jones is not so keen on traditional values and all that “we sang Rule Britannia without embarrassment” business. With MI6, her diagnosis of its failings is that tradition is the problem, as emphasised here:

“They have raised quality control to a senior level. This is a modern management concept and the lack of it before shows that enclosed organisations are in danger of not being as aware as they might be of new ways of doing things […] MI6 worked under traditional methods and modern management had not hit them.”

The Centre for European Reform

Neville-Jones is an Advisory Board member, along with other elite decision-makers of Atlanticist tendencies of the Centre for European Reform (CER), of which with a penchant for adopting the fashionable US ‘soft power’ approach together with support for more conventional forms of power.

In their own words the CER say they make a point of “bringing together people from the world of politics and business” but who that might be is indicated by their meetings and seminars which are described as “invitation-only events, to ensure a high level of debate.” Why not mention the “world of covert subversion” too?

Neville-Jones and her fellow organisers of the Intelligence Summit are clearly obsessed with conspiracy theories and helping out the US government in its war on whoever and whatever. But looking at the dishonest fealty of the organisers of the Intelligence summit, and noting that Neville-Jones is one of them it is possible to view Neville-Jones' interpretation of the reception on BBC’s Question Time of Philip Lader as simply another attempt to silence any form of dissent. The proximity of APCO (if not war mongers, then certain amongst the mongers) and the CER together with their own definition of how the CER works: combining the worlds of politics and business, might tempt us towards the thinking that it is the CER who openly aim to controls audiences and not the BBC’s Question Time. And the ends to which it seeks to control strongly relate to the arms industry and political influence particularly that of the interests of USA.

The CER’s Report says it provides “private papers and briefings that business people, senior officials, ministers and commissioners ask us to provide,” but they make a point of saying that their “work is funded by donations from the private sector” and that “it has never received money from governments or EU institutions.” That is questionable given the presence of the German Marshall Fund of the US; but why this distinction was made was during a period when the processes of influencing elite decision-making by insider lobbying — which would seem to be the CER’s purpose — was to the fore with Greg Palast’s evidence New Labour’s ‘Lobbygate.’ Here, apart from Derek Draper, Roger Liddle was the focus of an 'exposé of wholesale corruption' in the Blair cabinet. Palast posed as a US energy company employee and taped meetings with Liddle:

Roger Liddle is one of the more important men in government, in charge of European affairs for the Prime Minister’s Public Policy Unit, with an office near Blair’s in 10 Downing Street. We talked about our power generators for our Texans – polluting and noisy and squandering resources, if we were honest about it. We needed the rules and asked Liddle if Draper was as influential as he claimed. Liddle leaned forward. “There is a Circle.” Liddle was now whispering. “There is a Circle and Derek is part of the Circle. And anyone who says he isn’t is An Enemy.” He reassured us that, “Derek knows all the right people.” Could Draper introduce us to key policy-makers? In response, Liddle handed us a card with his Downing Street and home phone numbers, and made this extraordinary offer. “Whenever you are ready, just tell me what you want, who you want to meet and Derek and I will make the call for you.”

Many of the CER’s small group of people have later joined ‘governments or EU institutions.’

But why do ‘senior officials, ministers and commissioners’ get something for nothing and the more important question is why is the CER utterly dependent on the ‘donations’ of its funders: Accenture, APCO, AstraZeneca, BAE Systems, BAT, BP, British Bankers’ Association, BT, Chubb Investment Services, Daily Mail and General Trust, Deutsche Bank, Diageo, EADS, EDS, The Economist, Express Dairies, German Marshall Fund of the US, GKN, GlaxoSmithKline, Goldman Sachs, KPMG, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Northern Foods, Pearson, Portland Place Capital, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Telecom Italia, Tesco, Thales, Unilever, United Utilities, UPS, Weber Shandwick Adamson and WPP Group. What do they get for their money?

So we could argue that Neville-Jones is part of a lobby front. To provide evidence for this could group the companies which fund the CER (and are introduced to politicians in the Liddle manner) into various patterns: UK and US Arms Companies and manufacturers would include AstraZeneca, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin. Two of the main Public Relations organizations, Weber Shandwick Adamson and the WPP Group appear so it is reasonable to assume that the CER engages with these PR companies and some of their clients — that means quite legitimate suspicion could be cast on Ambassador Lader (the chairman of the WPP Group) and his very public performance on Newsnight. Neville-Jones is in his debt since the company’s generosity enables her to see her advice carried out via the CER. Three right-wing mainstream media companies (although Pearson publish many titles including the Financial Times) feel the need to support the CER’s endeavors: The Economist, Pearson, Daily Mail and General Trust. We can also identify the three main consultants/auditors: PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Accenture. Five representatives of finance capital that dovetails with the security industry: Portland Place Capital, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Chubb Investment Services, British Bankers’ Association and APCO — founded in 1984, APCO Associates Inc, the Washington based parent of APCO UK, has a long record of providing lobbying services. Its Washington office has a staff of over 100 including former politicians, US Ambassadors and Capitol Hill staff, including Richard V. Allen (formerly with the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies mentioned above), as senior counsellor. APCO note of themselves:

“Given the expertise of APCO consultants in Middle East affairs and with the key U.S. government agencies involved in the contracting process, including the Agency for International Development (AID) and the Defense Department, APCO is well positioned to help identify contract opportunities, navigate the complex award process both in Washington and in Baghdad, and position clients with major contracting parties and the U.S. government’s key appointees in Baghdad.”

So again, aside from her directorship in Qinetiq, we can identify that Neville-Jones has direct and ramified ties with war profiteering or “contract opportunities”, or “complex award process” whatever terminology you prefer. Understandably, we cannot actually gain a complete knowledge of who is funding the CER from their Annual Report of 2002 only: “In addition to our corporate members, numerous other companies have supported specific publications and events,” and there are pictures of influence peddlers at various Fringe meetings such as the Labour Party Conference, Peter Mandelson was a frequent speaker. The Report does indicate that half the money (over half a million) goes on staff, a quarter on administration and that they spend about the same on travel and ‘other’ as they do on ‘publishing’. Their statement on their achievements is feeble but included this indication of their purpose:

“…we have pointed the way to a healthier transatlantic relationship by urging the Americans to become more confident about using ‘soft power’, and the Europeans to develop some more of the hard sort”.

What they say they offer is “Proximity to the media” and the hard sell is reinforced by the “activity of our advisory board”, so it is difficult for the advisory board to distance themselves from the work and who funds it given that it is argued the “distinguished members of our board —from business, politics, diplomacy and academia — devote time and energy to helping us with our strategy and work programme.” Proximity is a key phrase in their self-recommendations including: “Proximity to governments and EU institutions” and “Proximity to the private sector,” so they claim to play the role of a proxy force to procure that which their clients desire, why leaders in business, politics, diplomacy and academia would need such a conduit is unclear, given that we already have the Royal Institute for International Affairs, the International Institute for Strategic Studies the Royal United Services Institute, the Foreign Policy Centre, the British American Security Information Council and even the Henry Jackson Society, but perhaps these organizations are just the same old faces. Charles Grant the director boasted that “Several publications by CER Director Charles Grant, have helped to set the agenda in the debate on European Defence.”

Role at BBC and Qinetiq

The Observer reports:

The BBC chief who played a pivotal role in how the corporation covered the Iraq war and the David Kelly affair, stands to profit out of a firm with lucrative military contracts in Iraq.

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, a BBC governor, emerged as one of the main figures in the feud between the BBC and the government in the fallout of the Hutton Inquiry into the death of weapons scientist Dr David Kelly, being blamed personally by former-director general Greg Dyke for his sacking.

Neville-Jones, a former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, took an unusually active role in the Kelly affair, criticising Andrew Gilligan's reporting and also expressing unease about Kelly's expertise.

Now it has emerged that Neville-Jones chairs a company providing military equipment for US Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters, both of which are used in Iraq, leading to calls for her to reconsider her position as a governor.

Documents from Companies House reveal that Neville-Jones earned £133,000 last year as chairman of Qinetiq, the privatised research arm of the MoD.

International Commission on the Balkans

In 1996 Neville-Jones was appointed as a special advisor to Carl Bildt then 'High Representative' overseeing the civilian international effort to enforce the Bosnia peace agreement. After which she took up a post as managing director with NatWest Markets. This led to her appointment on the International Commission on the Balkans.

Long-standing Relationships

Although designed a tub thumper speech at the Conservative's conference (there is no actual explanation of problems or solutions offered) Neville-Jones' (2007) 'It is time for a national security policy' begs the question: what values does Neville-Jones represents other than an almost classic authoritarian psychological complex and the faux-aristocratic (she’s from Leeds) demeanour of the parvenu. But it would seem purblind:

“We have long-standing relationships with the countries of the Middle East. We need to use those relationships to persuade them to reform their societies and their political systems so they start to resolve the social and political problems that breed terrorism.”

Her dead-eyed, utter gall feeds off an unapologetic willfull ignorance whereby all history, recent atrocities, camp x-ray, rendition, torture and so forth are obliterated, Neville-Jones can provide the platitude that our values are “that we are a liberal democracy; all our citizens are equal under a single secular law”, except for those widespread incidents whereby those who are immune from prosecution, spirit off their less fortunate targets. Social and political problems breed terrorism abroad, but not, as she argues, in the UK (or in the US), with the possible exception of Newsround and certain episodes of Question Time.

Remnants of Empire flutter on with Neville-Jones: she was Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and at the same time the Deputy Under-Secretary in charge of the Defence and Overseas Secretariat and as such engaged at an elite level, and here we see not the protection of freedom, but sheer naked avaricious greed. It is not that this geo-political process whereby Neville-Jones’ involvement in the areas where war, terrorism, privatisation, diplomacy, politics and big business collide have not been noticed, some authors, such as Francis Wheen, have described her rewards and her values and motivation in some detail:

“Throughout the war in Bosnia, she and her colleague Douglas Hurd treated Milosevic as a moderate and necessary middleman, refusing to accept that he was in fact the genocidal thug who had instigated the violence. At the Dayton peace talks, where Neville-Jones was the chief British representative, she argued energetically and successfully for an end to sanctions against Serbia. What no one at Dayton knew, but Hurd has since confirmed, is that at the same time she was ‘in touch with NatWest Markets’ about the possibility of a job in the private sector. Hurd himself had become deputy chairman of the bank shortly after resigning as foreign secretary, and Neville-Jones joined him as managing director in July 1996, whereupon they jetted off to Serbia to cash in on the abolition of sanctions. At a ‘working breakfast’ in Belgrade, Milosevic signed a lucrative deal whereby NatWest Markets would privatize Serbia’s post and telephone system for a fee of about $10million. For a further large fee, they agreed to manage the Serbian national debt.”

Affiliations

• The Intelligence Summit | Centre for European Reform | QinetiQ | International Institute for Strategic Studies | Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies | Ditchley Foundation | Risk and Security Management Forum | International Commission on the Balkans