How Reid revived a 40-year-old history of suspicions

In a single outburst yesterday, John Reid undermined years of painstaking work by the Labour leadership to end the historic mutual suspicion between the party and the security services.

But the Leader of the Commons' denunciation of "uncorroborated briefings by a potentially rogue element - or indeed rogue elements - in the intelligence services" was no accident.

With the Government's problems deepening over the failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction, ministers are desperate to steady the nerves of Labour MPs agonising over the legitimacy of military action in Iraq and over the Government's probity in making the case for war.

Dr Reid's comments tapped into a deep folk memory among Labour MPs convinced that the shadowy forces of MI5 and MI6 are instinctively hostile to the party - or could even conspire to do it down.

In his final years as Prime Minister, Harold Wilson became convinced that figures in MI5 were plotting against him. In his book Spycatcher, published after Wilson's death, the former MI5 officer Peter Wright suggested that it had indeed tried during the Cold War to blacken Wilson's name by linking him to the Soviet Union.

In the past the security services also carried out surveillance of senior Irish republicans and leaders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the National Union of Mineworkers, all causes which carried the support of many Labour activists.

Dr Reid, a Communist during the 1970s and today regarded as among the least gaffe-prone of New Labour ministers, will have been well aware of the power of invoking images of establishment-minded spooks ideologically opposed to Labour.

But his attack, via a newspaper front page, backfired when he was cross-examined on BBC Radio 4's Today programme by John Humphrys.

Asked about his claims about "rogue elements", Dr Reid preferred to lambast the programme's "unfounded allegations" over government claims on weapons of mass destruction, and "misrepresentations" by its defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, who first reported security service fears that the Government had distorted its intelligence reports on Iraq.

An exasperated Mr Humphrys snapped: "You are not putting up a bit of smoke here, are you, Dr Reid? I'd love you to answer the question."

After 10 minutes of exchanges, Dr Reid said the "rogue elements" were "anonymous, their position is not known, they have uncorroborated evidence". Tempers rose as he suggested the Today reporter could have received his "leak" from a "man in the pub". Mr Humphrys retorted: "I rather think people like Andrew Gilligan can distinguish between an intelligence officer and a man in a pub."

Relations between the Government and the BBC were already patchy. Alastair Campbell, the director of communications and strategy at Downing Street, made little secret of his irritation over BBC coverage of the war in Bosnia and similar complaints have been made over its reports from Iraq. Mr Gilligan, who reported from Baghdad as the regime fell, was singled out by Downing Street in April for suggesting the city's residents felt more threatened by looters than by Saddam Hussein's forces. It said: "I don't think the Iraqi Information Minister would have justified that."

As the dust settled on the Today exchanges, the feeling grew in government circles that Dr Reid had gone too far. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said Downing Street did not disagree with the comments. But he refused to endorse the phrase "rogue elements", preferring to mount a fresh attack on the BBC.

The following hour, in the Commons, Mr Blair was forced to clarify his colleague's comments. He said: "In fairness to Dr Reid, he did not say the security services were engaged in this. He said that somebody was obviously talking from the security services. It's pretty obvious that is the case."

Underlining the message, a Reid ally said last night: "John's intention was to defend the security services from people slagging them off, not to slag off the security services. He has worked closely with them in the Northern Ireland Office and the Ministry of Defence.

"The construction of his remarks harks back to the Harold Wilson era, but life has moved on and the security services are no longer looking for 'reds under the bed'. They are a vital line in our defences in the uncertain world we live in."

But Joe Haines, Wilson's former press secretary, said his old boss had every reason for his growing paranoia during the 1970s. "On the whole the security services tend to be very right-wing and there was a belief that Wilson was a potential traitor," he said.

He added that, even though the Cold War had ended, he did not believe the intelligence-gatherers had changed that much. "John Reid is probably right there is a small element that would like to see the end of Tony Blair," Mr Haines said.

"Remember that they [the security services] live in a culture of conspiracy, that they see spies behind every leaf, behind every bush and indeed behind every telephone. They will readily become conspirators themselves."

HAROLD WILSON, SPYCATCHER AND DARK SOVIET RUMOURS

the security service fought a long battle 16 years ago to block the publication of Peter Wright's memoirs, Spycatcher. He claimed he had led a conspiracy to discredit Harold Wilson during the 1970s.

Mr Wright said agents built a file, codenamed "Henry Worthington", on Lord Wilson and his friends, focusing on suspicions they were Soviet sympathisers.

Lord Wilson's resignation from Downing Street was often blamed on his growing paranoia, although early signs of poor health or his wife's dislike of the political life were more likely explanations.

After stepping down in 1976, he hit out at "the subversion of the right" and claimed: "Dark forces are attacking our democracy."

Persistent claims that he was a Soviet spy dated back to his early days in government in the 1940s, when he frequently visited Moscow. US intelligence suspected that he had been handing over Western secrets under the guise of selling warplanes to the Soviet Union. Dark rumours, which were never proved, circulated that he was caught in a sex trap by Russian agents.

When Anatoli Golitsin, a Soviet spy, defected, he added to the black propaganda against Lord Wilson, claiming that his predecessor as Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskell, had been assassinated.

Nigel Morris