Why Do Russian Spies Interfere in Global Politics?

Summary

The Rest Is Classified

Episode: Why Do Russian Spies Interfere in Global Politics?

Hosts: David McCloskey & Gordon Corera
Guest: Tom Bradby
Date: April 23, 2026

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode dives into the contemporary reality of Russian interference in global politics, focusing on Europe and the UK, the vulnerabilities that exist in democratic systems, and the role of intelligence communities in detecting and responding to these threats. With special guest Tom Bradby—ITV News at Ten presenter, spy novelist, and author of the new drama Secret Service—the discussion spans real-world cases, the fictional depiction of espionage, the implications for NATO and Western alliances, and why Russian intelligence operations are uniquely persistent and successful.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Fault Line of Power: Why Interference Matters

• Opening Reflection (00:20): Gordon sets the tone by explaining institutional vulnerability:

  “In intelligence work, the real failures rarely begin out in the field. They begin closer to power, where access dulls suspicion and questions stop being asked. That's where systems fail, not at the edges, but at the center.”

• The fictional drama Secret Service is used as a lens to explore real-world blurring between duty and personal allegiance.

2. Russian Interference: Fact, Fiction, and Public Impact

• Revisiting 2016 & Broadening the Scope (01:25–04:20):
  • David and Gordon expand from US election interference to threats across Europe, raising the hypothesis that intelligence services have not fully come to grips with the challenge.
• Tom Bradby’s Journalism and Spy Fiction (04:20–06:58):
  • Bradby credits his reporting and previous Goalhanger episodes as inspirations for exploring how Russian operations “poisoned the well of democracy.”
  • He articulates why these threats matter:

    “That’s the security umbrella I’ve grown up in, potentially gone... if you're British or European, you're thinking, if Vladimir Putin does... some kind of thing in Estonia, is Donald Trump coming to our aid? Answer, I would say very clearly no.” (05:24)

• The idea: Russian interference has real-world effects on alliances, trust, and transatlantic security.

3. Real-World Cases: Hungary & Beyond

• Operation Game Changer in Hungary (06:58–08:53):
  • Gordon recounts Russia’s rumored plan to stage a fake assassination attempt in support of Viktor Orban.
  • Tom:

    “The stuff going on in Hungary is absolutely wild... They were really involved on any number of levels and they really, really wanted Orban to win.” (08:04)

• Leaked Calls & Intelligence Leverage (08:53–09:35):
  • Growing trend of intelligence leaks shaping international elections.
  • The mounting stress within NATO and Europe’s increased vulnerability.

4. The Shifting Foundations of NATO

• Transatlantic Trust Eroding (09:35–11:23):
  • Questions about the reliability of the US under a Trump-like leader.
  • Political alignment and worldview convergence between Trump and the Kremlin.
• American and European Perspectives (11:23–14:25):
  • David notes American public detachment from European security issues.
  • Gordon and Tom discuss the reciprocal value of alliances and how mutual trust is breaking down.

5. Intelligence Sharing Amid Political Shift

• Strains in UK-US Intelligence Relations (18:18–21:25):
  • Worried intelligence officials, increasing reluctance to share sensitive information, especially about Russian assets.
  • David:

    “You’d probably give that a second thought in this environment in a way that you wouldn’t have in years past.” (19:37)

• Comparison to 9/11 and Structural Change (21:25–22:16):
  • Tom remembers the intense solidarity of the immediate post-9/11 years, contrasting it to today’s fractured alliances.

6. Russian Money & Political Corruption

• Floodgates Opened Post-2010 (22:22–23:06):
  • Bradby highlights London’s vulnerability to Russian cash and influence, calling British politics “quite susceptible to money.”
  • Political donations and elite social access = direct avenues for influence.
• Impact of Ukraine and Human Intelligence (23:06–25:48):
  • Both MI6 and CIA have publicly sought Russian sources disillusioned post-Ukraine invasion.
  • David points out that Ukraine has made Western HUMINT and SIGINT (signals intelligence) operations against Russia sharper and more prolific.

7. The Intelligence Dilemma: What Do You Do with ‘The Bombshell’?

• Handling Toxic Intel (27:55–33:07):
  • How does MI6 respond if handed proof of a top politician compromised by Russia?
  • Bradby:

    “There are some really big differences between journalists and intelligence agents, but there are some similarities... You get a piece of information, then you try and assess, is it correct, is it true, is it right? And did someone have a vested interest in telling me?” (27:55)

  • Parallel to the Steele dossier: even knowing is politically explosive—leaders may “not want to know” or “not want to believe.”
• Fear of Politicizing Intelligence (33:07–36:42):
  • British intelligence avoids “going near politics” due to risk and past negative experiences.
  • Recent non-prosecutions of US commentators paid by Russia because cases are so murky and quickly politicized.

8. Russian Influence: How Deep, How Subtle?

• Tom on Russian Money in British Politics (36:42–38:34):
  • Real example: Nathan Gill, tipped off by FBI, previously pro-British, yet took Russian funds for pro-Russia speeches.
  • Russian political influence is reduced since 2014 but more dangerous: “there’s more danger that what there is, is potentially pernicious.”
  • MI5 overstretched—far from having it under control.
• MI5’s Dilemma (38:34–39:34):
  • Difficulty shifting from classic spy-catching to tracking money, influence, and subtle manipulation.

9. Why Russia, Not China?

• Different Playbooks (39:34–43:07):
  • China focuses on economic, technological, and data theft—"stealing everything”—but doesn’t engage in overt, deeply subversive active measures with the same frequency or hostility as Russia.
  • Tom:

    “Russia is a sort of more actively hostile force... If the Russian intelligence services were to claim credit for [Trump in the White House], they would probably say, ‘That’s the most successful intelligence operation of the last 50 years.’” (41:34)

  • Russia’s strategy is to “shape the environment” through division; China wants influence, Russia wants destabilization.

10. Active Measures and the ‘Intelligence State’

• Historical Context (43:07–44:31):
  • David cites former CIA officer John Sipher:

    “Russia is effectively an intelligence state and its foreign policy is conducted primarily by its intelligence services... not just stealing secrets but shaping the environment.”

  • Russian methods: Payoffs to MPs, social media manipulation, and the pursuit of division for strategic advantage.
  • Ongoing manipulations such as pro-Scottish independence and potentially Iranian-backed social media campaigns.

11. The Dangerous Future: Political Interference and Populist Waves

• Shortcutting Democratic Safeguards (46:20–47:14):
  • Political interference is a “shortcut” for Russia—if you can influence leaders, you bypass public opinion management.
  • Tools: funneling money, placing assets, remote influence via social media.

12. Outlook: Gloomy but Not Hopeless

• A Lost Arc of Optimism? (47:14–49:01):
  • Tom laments the world’s shift from post-Cold War optimism to growing instability.
  • Gordon:

    “You can imagine... a general war... scenarios in a way I don’t think we would have thought plausible 20 years ago... That feels different.” (48:19)

  • David:

    “There has been a revenge of geopolitics... a collapse of our own political consensus on [the] US role in the world... That makes me a little gloomy.” (49:01)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Russian Interference’s Success:
  Tom Bradby (41:34):

  “[Russian intelligence would] probably say, ‘That’s the most successful intelligence operation of the last 50 years.’ And who knows? Maybe they’re right.”

• Institutional Fear:
  Gordon (33:07):

  “The British agencies, having watched them closely, they do not like going near politics... you just know that it's dangerous.”

• On MI5’s Challenge:
  Tom Bradby (38:07):

  “When I talk to people in MI5, they seem pretty hard pressed to me... They're like, no, it's hard, it's tough, and we're under the gun a bit.”

• The Uncomfortable Truth:
  David (19:37):

  “You’d probably give that a second thought in this environment in a way that you wouldn’t have in years past.”

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Headline Timestamps

• 00:20 — The failure starts at the center, not the field (tone-setter)
• 04:20 — Tom Bradby on reporting, democracy, and Russian interests in Trump
• 06:58 — Hungary as a real-time lab for Russian interference (“Operation Game Changer”)
• 09:35 — Doubts on NATO’s reliability and the impact for UK, EU
• 18:18 — Intelligence sharing between allies under strain
• 22:22 — Tom on Russian money, London, and political susceptibility
• 23:06 — UK/US recruiting Russian assets after Ukraine
• 27:55 — MI6’s fictional (and real) dilemmas in handling explosive intelligence
• 33:07 — MI5 slow to investigate Brexit interference for fear of politicization
• 36:42 — Real-world case: Nathan Gill and Russian influence in Wales
• 39:34 — Why Russia is the chief political attacker, not China
• 43:07 — Russia as an “intelligence state” focused on active measures
• 46:20 — Political interference: Russia’s shortcut to foreign policy wins
• 47:14 — Hosts’ outlooks: from post-Cold War optimism to today’s precariousness

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Tone & Atmosphere

• Reflective, candid, and often sobering.
• Nuanced: while deeply informed, never sensational.
• Often grim about the prospects for Western security alliances and the ability of intelligence agencies to keep pace, yet underpinned by professional camaraderie and wry humor.

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Concluding Thoughts

• The threat of Russian interference is pervasive, subtle, and tailored to exploit Western legal, cultural, and institutional vulnerabilities.
• The classic intelligence dilemma of “who watches the watchers,” and when to act on ambiguous threats, remains central.
• While China is also active, only Russia couples capacity with the will to subvert democracies so overtly.
• Democratic institutions and alliances are more fragile than in living memory, and intelligence agencies face new limits—both practical and political—on their ability to respond robustly.
• The episode ends with a hopeful nod to the power of storytelling and reflection—as embodied in Secret Service—to keep these issues in the public eye.

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Recommended Media (for Spy Fans)

• Say Nothing (Disney+; on Northern Ireland conflict)
• Tom Bradby’s novels, especially Secret Service and Shadow Dancer
• David McCloskey’s “Damascus Station” (praised by Tom for authentic structure)

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Final Memorable Exchange

Tom Bradby (53:51):

“I really hope [Secret Service] succeeds... we’re trying to make something that is beltingly entertaining but is trying to tackle some of these themes... It would be really nice if we can make a show that is hopefully tackling more complex themes that really lands because then we’ll be able to do some more.”

David (54:39):

“The best spy dramas... take the human drama and link it to some bigger, you know, piece of what's going on in the world today.”

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This episode offers a rich, layered, and essential guide to the true mechanics and risks of Russian political interference—and why, to preserve democracy, the hardest questions must be asked at the very center of power.

Transcript

[David]

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the declassified [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by ITV Now.

[Gordon]

DAVID in intelligence work, the real failures rarely begin out in the field. They begin closer to power, where access dulls suspicion and questions stop being asked. That's where systems fail, not at the edges, but at the center.

[David]

And that is the fault line at the heart of Secret Service, a new drama on ITV. Gemma Arterden plays a senior MI6 officer working on the Russia desk, uncovering evidence that a high ranking UK politician may in fact be a Russian asset.

[Gordon]

And what begins in Malta moves quickly into Whitehall, which where influence matters, reputations provide protection and trust can be badly misplaced. It's a fictional story, but it recognizes a familiar pattern. How easily the line between public duty and private allegiance can blur.

[David]

Also starring Rafe Spall, it's based on the bestselling novel by ITV News at Ten's Tom Bradby, who we're delighted to have joining us on today's episode.

[Gordon]

It comes back to one uncomfortable idea. The enemy's closer than you think.

[David]

Secret Service starts Monday 27th April on ITV1 and ITVX. Well, welcome to this special extra episode of the Rest Is Classified, in which we are going to have have a deep look at the very murky and very interesting world of Russian interference in politics. Now, listeners will doubtless remember, Gordon, that we did a series on this earlier in the year where we took a, a hard look at Russian interference in the US 2016 presidential election. What was fact, what was fiction, what did the Russians actually done? Had to look at that, that active measure and today I think it's fair to say we're going to widen the aperture a bit and have a look at Russian interference in politics more broadly, in particular in Europe, and also have a look at really whether security and intelligence services have a handle on that. And I'll offer an initial hypothesis the answer is no, but we'll have a, we'll have a deeper look, come back to that as, as we go. And we're joined by a very special gu today, aren't we, Gordon?

[Gordon]

Yeah, that's right. With us we do have a special guest, none other than Tom Bradby, presenter of the ITV news at 10, also a former political editor and foreign correspondent, author of a series of great thrillers and spy novels. I recently reread actually, Tom's Shadow Dancer, which was drawn from your time in Northern Ireland, as we were doing our Steak Knife series, which was running at the moment. And of course also this novel and now TV show, Secret Service. Welcome, Tom, to the Rest Is Classified. Thank you for being here.

[Tom Bradby]

Well, I'm a listener, so it's a great privilege to be here. Thank you very much.

[Gordon]

And all the best people are novelists, aren't they, David?

[Tom Bradby]

Because I've now got.

[David]

Gordon is surrounded.

[Gordon]

Yeah, I'm surrounded.

[David]

It just, it just feels right. It just feels right, Gordon, what can I say? And we don't, we don't want to give too much away about Secret Service, but it is probably no spoiler to say that the novel, the show is all about Russia interfering in British politics, something that would obviously never happen, but is great to happen in the world of fiction. Russia getting up to no good is, of course, it's one of our favorite themes on this program. Yeah, I would say so. This is, this is, this is a perfect, a perfect opportunity to speak more about it. And we thought that this would be a good opportunity to explore, I think, some of the ways that the Russians do this and how intelligence services have really coped with it. And so, I mean, Tom, I guess maybe to start, I'd love to know how much of your reporting in real life drove the idea for Secret Service.

[Tom Bradby]

I think there's a direct connection. There are many things that have been written about the 2016 election in America and all the rest of it. And not to start all this by blowing smoke, but I do think the series, both the subscribers, only one, which I thought was brilliant, and the more general one that you guys did was kind of the definitive take on is Trump an agent? Obviously you concluded no in the sense of being a controlled agent, but also in terms of what Russia was trying to do and the operation they were trying to run, you draw very clear conclusions about what impact it did and didn't have. And I was, of course, thinking about all this in the, in the, in the, in the mid teens and to sort of summarize, because I think one of the questions you have to address when you're talking about these issues is if you're seeking a mass audience, and we hope we'll have a mass audience for this, I guess people think, well, why does it, why does it matter? And as I was, I listened to your series a second time, and as I was going through it, I was trying to think, what, what could you say, you know, if I walk down the pub now and someone said, oh, I've just, I've heard so much about this. Tell me what we can't argue about. I would say, well, unarguably, I think you would say the Russians at some point saw Donald Trump as a person of great interest, somebody who would be friendly to their interests, who liked the oligarchical system of government and all the other things that you outlined so well in your series, they did try to help him get elected. Again, you debate how much that did or didn't change the 2016 election. And unquestionably, and this was the conclusion of your series, it poisoned the well of democracy in America. And why does it matter? Well, where are we now? I think NATO's dead. I think if you're British or you're European, you're thinking, if Vladimir Putin does a kind of false flag operational, some kind of thing in Estonia, is Donald Trump coming to our aid? Answer, I would say very clearly no. Or more accurately, can we rely on him doing so? Very clearly, no. And so that's one the kind of. That's the security umbrella I've grown up in, potentially gone. And of course, Russia would love to peel off a few other big countries in Europe from that kind of security umbrella, Britain amongst them. So that's the kind of thing I was wrestling with when I came up with the idea. But what if you were the MI6 officer who actually had credible intelligence that one of our politicians was in some way compromised with some kind of workable asset for the Russians? And that just absolutely intrigued me and that really was how I got going with Secret Service.

[Gordon]

Because it is interesting, isn't it? We are in a world in which politics is the kind of battleground for spies, maybe in a way we didn't always appreciate, I think in the past. And I mean, I think it's interesting reflecting because we've just seen this election in Hungary in the last few weeks where Viktor Orban, the Nationalist Prime Minister, was outed. And very intriguingly, he was probably the favored candidate of both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, but not the rest of Europe. And there was this accusation that Russia was looking to interfere in that election in politics to support a particular candidate. There's this amazing piece that the Washington Post did where it said that the Russian spies from the svr, so their foreign intelligence service, which so worried about him losing, lose. He did, though, that they actually considered something called Operation Game Changer, which was staging a fake assassination attempt on him to boost his popularity. I mean, that is the stuff of novels, isn't it, Tom? I mean, it is the idea that they can have favored candidates, but want to kind of get involved and sway elections. That is the reality, isn't it, that we're looking at in Europe now?

[Tom Bradby]

The stuff going on in Hungary is absolutely wild, really. I mean, there was, you know, the suggestion, the fake incident that they were saying that the Ukrainians were trying to bomb a pipeline. Peter Magyar, a few months before the election, said he was going to be probably blackmailed with a sex tape. I mean, in my TV drama, there is a sex tape. So I'm reading this in the news and thinking, oh, wow, this is, this is weird. I mean, you know, you go back to that area of Europe, you go to the coup in Montenegro, you know, where they tried to assassinate the prime minister potentially. But when you look at what went on in Hungary, I mean, it's quite heavy duty. It's not one or two things. They were really involved on any number of levels and they really, really wanted Orban to win. So, yeah, I mean, I think that was a classic example of how far they're prepared to go.

[Gordon]

Yeah, it was interesting, actually, because there was also some leaks of, I think, phone calls or transcripts of phone calls between the Hungarian government and some Russian government officials, I think even between Putin and Orban. And you could kind of sense we're in a world in which stuff is getting leaked by different intelligence services and different sides to play into an election. So I think it's definitely feels, it feels quite intense, like the stakes are quite high because of the importance of the country, because it's been blocking aid from the EU to go to NATO. It matters. So it goes back to your point, which is NATO is under stress. I mean, you think it is close to dead, though. I mean, that's pretty, pretty, pretty worrying if you think it's that serious.

[Tom Bradby]

I mean, David, what do you think? I mean, where do you think we are in NATO? I, I just, as a British person who's covered politics my whole life, I just think if you're the prime minister, you've got to assume that if something were to happen in Eastern Europe, would Donald Trump be there for us? And I, I think the, the only answer you can conclude is in terms of something we can rely on. No, sure. America is not going to leave NATO. Donald Trump can't do that because of the, you know, the act that Marco Rubio put through Congress. But, I mean, where do you feel we are on NATO?

[David]

Yeah, I would, I would tend to agree. I think it's, it's a collective defense organization that is, even though, you know, at times, we haven't wanted to be as direct in saying this. It's directed at the Russians, and it seems implausible to me, given what we know about. We talked about this a little bit, Gordon, in our series on Russia and the Trump connection. I think Trump is not a controlled Russian agent. It's really more that there's a convergence between the interests and priorities and worldview of Donald Trump and the interests and priorities and worldview of Putin and the Kremlin. There's a shared, I think, sense of the world and how power is exerted in the world. And I think it would be an unwise bet at this point in time to presume that Donald Trump would step in and would enforce Article 5 if a piece of the Baltics were sort of peeled off by the Russians.

[Gordon]

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you, David, sitting where you are in Texas. Do you think if next week Russia invaded Estonia or, you know, Latvia or Lithuania, do you think, or, you know, just took a little piece of territory, do you think the mood would be amongst the American population? Yep. We need to kind of step up for this. Or would be. Would it be. That's Europe's problem?

[David]

Absolutely not. I think that's Europe's problem. I mean, you know, it's interesting, Tom, when you're talking about how would you explain to someone at the pub, the, the implications, the consequences of Russian interference in politics more broadly, like, why is that bad for them? What impact does it have on them? I think it's harder to explain that in the United States, even though we have had direct instances of Russian interference in our politics, it is so geographically distant that I think for many Americans, you just roll your eyes and move on. And it's also the politics around Russian active measures here in the States have gotten so poisoned and confused and political that it's very hard, it can be very hard to talk about Russia topics without it immediately signaling what tribe you belong to. It's. It's ceased becoming an apolitical national security issue, which it. Apolitical is the wrong word. But it was, you know, politics on Russia to some degree stopped at the, at the ocean during the Cold War, and they, they don't anymore.

[Tom Bradby]

Can I ask you both a question which I've sort of been burning to ask someone who's, you know, his opinion I really value, and it's kind of just been on my mind. And this is actually, you know, I think in Europe we're very focused on Russia and Russia is the enemy. It's a sort of coin toss about if I'm talking to my kids. And there I was at a school event the other day and some 15 year old put up his hand and said, am I going to be conscripted and have to fight in a war? And it was such a sort of sobering question and really made me think about it. And obviously in Europe, it's Russia we're worried about. But you could make the argument that the most likely prospect of a world war in the next 50 years is America against China. And one thing that I'm always amazed that Americans don't seem to spend more time talking about is if you're America in that fight, wouldn't you rather have Europe on your side than be doing it alone? And in that sense, America ought to be more invested in NATO than it sometimes seems to be. Or is that just like, too esoteric to.

[Gordon]

No, I think it's a good challenge because I think alliances should be reciprocal, because I do think the risk is that if people in Europe don't feel that the US Donald Trump has got their back when it comes to confronting Russia, then when it does come to a crisis over China and Taiwan, I mean, I do think if you went down the pub here and said to people, should we go to war over Taiwan? They'd be like, you know what, there's very little kind of relevance or salience, even though I'm sure there are trade issues around the Taiwan Straits and global economy, all those things matter. But it's a long, long way away from us here in the UK So the only way in which, if the US did want to kind of alliance would be on the kind of goodwill basis where you felt like, well, this is an alliance of common interests, common values. And that's the bit which is breaking down, isn't it? And I think that that's the problem is that then if you don't have that feeling, then people won't come to each other's help when it might be less in their direct interests.

[David]

I also think American politicians have in some cases willfully downplayed or ignored the benefits of these security relationships with allies or are just ignorant of them themselves. And so the American population, broadly, I think, has been, I think, more and more convinced that we need to take a transactional approach to these relationships. And we don't, we don't see the longer term strategic value in having a peaceful and largely friendly European continent is not something that the United States of America has tended to enjoy throughout much of its history. And given that Europe is one of our borders, it's obviously hugely advantageous to us, but because we're not in a hot war with China, because the type of Russian conflict we're discussing, I mean, what we're discussing today in the show is so hard to get your mind around. I think that the value we place on those relationships has, has collectively diminished.

[Tom Bradby]

I mean, I think the thing that freaks me out as we're talking, having this conversation. About three weeks ago, the front page story on the Times on a Saturday morning was, European leaders and officials now reconsidering worst case scenario. Worst case scenario is not that the US Turns out not to be a reliable NATO ally, but that it actually potentially becomes a hostile force, or at least a neutral force, in that it does a deal with Russia, perhaps to neutralize Russia and its ongoing issues with China. I read that and I thought the tectonic plates are on the point of shifting so majorly here that none of us can get our heads around it, that I think, you know, and I know we're talking about the Russians interfering in Europe, which unquestionably they're doing. But it's happening in the context of these massive plate shifts that I don't think anyone can get their head around.

[Gordon]

I think for security and intelligence agencies, it's hard. I mean, in some parts of life, you can hedge, you can reposition when it comes to trade. If you're Europe or if you're Canada, you can think, right, let's diversify. Let's not be so reliant on the US but if you're in the intelligence space and you're locked in pretty tightly as the UK and US are, or GCHQ and NSA are, it's hard. And if you're in the defence space, it's hard. I mean, our nuclear weapons are linked to the US but also a lot of our military procurement, but also a lot of U.S. bases are in the U.K. i mean, there is an element in which it does go both ways. I mean, the US does need those bases in Europe. I mean, they're important for the US But I think Europe is quite nervous about being too transactional itself and saying to the US, well, okay, you know, goodbye to Ramstein, goodbye to kind of men with Hill, Filingdales, you know, all these big places in the uk because if you start doing that, you know, with Donald Trump, he'll go like, well, screw you there then. And I think a lot of people in Europe are thinking, well, we need to plan for a post American relationship. But we Also don't want to do it in a way which hastens it and makes it more likely or even worse. So I think there's like a kind of difficult thing there if you're in the security world, which is how do you talk about it even? Because I think it's quite a hard thing to even talk about without actually accelerating it in a way you might not want, because it's going to aggravate people.

[David]

Isn't there also an unanswered question in Europe about whether this is structurally the new normal or whether this is the outgrowth of Donald Trump's personality and politics? And even if you have a Trump, a Trumpian successor like Vance or Rubio, that it, you wouldn't have the same sort of highly volatile, aggressive, transactional approach to US relationships with European states that you would under Trump. Right. So that's an unanswered question at this point as well, which maybe makes it, makes you more likely if you're running MI6 to just stick your head in the sand and say in four years, two years, it'll be better.

[Tom Bradby]

Yeah. But, you know, I don't know what you both, you're much closer to it than me, but I do keep hearing from people who I've dealt with in intelligence services that there is quite a lot of worry about, for example, on certain subjects, sharing intelligence with America. You know, maybe it's against Russian assets, maybe it's against, you know, MI5 does a lot of work against the right wing extremism. I mean, what do you both make of the state of the Cross Atlantic intelligence relationships which everyone always tells me are so critical?

[Gordon]

Know on the intelligence sharing there is definitely things which are not being shared, which used to be shared. And we heard a little whispers of that about Venezuela, for instance, because the UK was a bit nervous about providing intelligence which might be used for boat

[David]

strikes, which I thought were all that juicy British targeting information from the Caribbean was.

[Gordon]

Ignore. Cut off David's, ignore David's dismissive comments about British intelligence. I think there might have been a bit of signals intelligence on that. But okay, let me, but let me put a more serious one. Would, you know, if, if you were the Brits, David, would you share details about a new Russian asset you'd recruited which might attract the attention of the White House, or would you kind of mask some of those details?

[David]

There would be more, more incentive now to not share that than there would have been that there would have been in the past. I think that the product is probably still being shared and I Suppose if you're in MI6 and you're thinking about an area where, like, the Americans bring something to the table that, that you don't have and you want to work on something on Russia, you'd probably, probably still do that because you, you'd want the help. And it also probably depends a lot on the nature of the interpersonal relationships between the two services, Russia components and whether there's ongoing trust there. But yeah, I think overall, you'd have to say if we put things into the American system that would allow people in the White House to, to know who, or frankly, even at, you know, upper echelons at CIA to know who our sources are, you'd probably give that a second thought in this environment in a way that you, you wouldn't have in years past. I'm back again to that just by, you know, sort of context clues and just thinking through the problem. I don't know if we have any examples of that or any instances of that actually happening yet, though. Do you know, Gordon?

[Gordon]

I mean, I think it's hard to know for sure about that kind of stuff, but I think, I think there would, would be a little bit more caution on some of these things. I mean, it was a big deal, wasn't it, Tom? The idea that the UK was not going to let the US use some of its bases for those initial effects, offensive strikes on Iran. We've just been recording a series on Iraq wmd, and you go back to the kind of that period 25 years ago when the instinctive thing would be we must cleave as close as possible to the us and now you have a Prime Minister who actually sees advantage in not doing that. That's a shift, isn't it?

[Tom Bradby]

Yeah, it definitely is a shift. Although I think I'm sure this will be a key part of your series. But I was in Heathrow when 911 happened, and I can remember to this day just watching the screens, just canceled, canceled, canceled, canceled. And everyone went to the BA ticket desk behind me because it was the only place with the tv. And after a bit, there were just hundreds of people watching this horror unfold. And like, if you were listening to this and you're only 20, it's hard to capture, isn't it, for those of us who were alive at the time, the sheer seismic impact of that. And I guess we've got to remember that Tony Blair's response in Afghanistan and Iraq came off the back of that. And it was, I think it went sour with Iraq, but Brits were with him for a long time. In a way. They just. No way would they be now.

[Gordon]

Yeah, there is a structural shift there, I think, which is going on with the populations.

[Tom Bradby]

Sorry to ask questions, but it's too tempting to be here with you guys. The one thing I wanted to ask is that when I was kind of doing the TV drama and stuff, a lot of my thoughts were about the money, you know, Russian money flooded into London, as you all know, in from 2010 onwards. I've always thought British politics is quite susceptible to money. Almost more susceptible, I think, than American politics, because there's less of a tradition of rich people giving to political parties in Britain. And so it's really hard to get money. So I think British politics has always been very vulnerable to money and remains so. But do you think, going the other way, that Ukraine has made it easier for British and American intelligence to pick up assets inside Russia, or is that just exaggerated?

[Gordon]

I mean, it was interesting, isn't it, that both Britain and America, so both MI6 and CIA have been running these little advert campaigns which are very interesting in Russian, basically telling people how to contact them on the dark web. And the point being they are. They're very clearly targeted at Russian officials, saying to Russian officials who may be disillusioned with what Putin is doing to their country and the stupidity, you know, as many would see it at the invasion of Ukraine, saying, you know, come and talk to us. And if you speak to both British and American officials, they're obviously not going to tell you exactly who they've recruited. But both CIA directors and Ms. Six Chiefs have suggested that they've had an influx of people. And you could imagine that, you know, there was an influx, wasn't there, after kind of the Prague Spring of 1968, when a whole load of people were like, I don't want to serve this kind of Communist regime which is invading Czechoslovakia. And I think there has been a kind of influx post Ukraine. I mean, we don't know the exact details of how many, but I think. I think that would have been significant, which in turn would be interesting because it would also help, you know, about Russian interference. Maybe you can get then some insight into what Russia is doing in the west and then against Western countries.

[David]

The other piece to that is, I think that's right, that there's an internal Russia story there, which is Russians who want to get out, who disagree with the decision and who would thus be more susceptible to. To a pitch. But there's also the fact that, I mean, you go back this obviously predates 2022 and it starts in 2014. But the development of the Ukrainian intelligence services as essentially forward operating bases for Western intelligence from both a SIGINT standpoint with a lot of those facilities along the sort of line of control, and frankly helping train and fund an organization that has native Russian speakers who can conduct human intelligence operations against the Russian services. All of that, I think, has probably dramatically increased both the quantity and quality of collection on Russia since 2014 and certainly since 2022. I don't know, but I'm going to guess that we're probably collecting a lot more on Russia now than we were prior to, to the war in Ukraine. And I think that probably spreads. I mean, going to, you know, this story around Russian interference and, you know, the UK or across Europe, I'm going to guess that a lot of that intelligence is not just about Ukraine, also that it's, it's spread its tentacles into other parts of the Russian security apparatus and given us insight into what they're doing, you know, all over, all over the world, probably.

[Gordon]

Should we take a quick break there and when we come back afterwards, we'll look a bit, bit more deeply at how well equipped our security and intelligence services are to get to the bottom of this Russian interference and how they might react when some of that intelligence comes in. So see you after the break. This episode is brought to you by itv.

[David]

In intelligence work, you don't act on suspicion, you act on facts, on what you can prove. And the closer someone is to power, the harder that becomes because you're not

[Gordon]

just weighing evidence, you're weighing the consequences. Act too early, you ruin the wrong person. Act too late and you miss the right one.

[David]

That's the fault line at the heart of Secret Service, a new drama on ITV. Gemma Arterton plays a senior MI6 officer trying to identify a threat inside her own system, where access can obscure the truth and institutions close ranks.

[Gordon]

It's a fictional drama, but the tension is real. When are you certain enough to act? It stars Rafe Spall and is based on the best selling novel by this episode's special guest, Tom Bradby.

[David]

It all comes back to a question intelligence services never can quite answer comfortably. When do you move if you're not sure who you can trust?

[Gordon]

Secret Service starts Monday 27th of April on ITV1 and ITVX. Well, welcome back. We are with Tom Bradby looking at Russian spies interfering in political life. We talked a little bit about how the intelligence community might be dealing with this, trying to recruit Russian agents and the like and Whether they might have got more. But I guess one of the questions is, what are the political sensitivities for intelligence agencies when they get that hot piece of intelligence saying that there's Russian interference going on in political life? I mean, that's part of the drama, isn't it, Tom? Is that one of the things that interested you, which was how would MI6 react to something suggesting there was Russian interference?

[Tom Bradby]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was actually walking past. I don't live that far from the MI6 building, so I was sort of. I was walking past it when I had the idea of Secret Service. And part of it was about getting the intelligence, the sort of nuclear bombshell intelligence that one of our leading politicians is some kind of demonstrable Russian asset. It's not clear which one. But the second piece that I immediately went on to think about is, wow, how would that. How would that actually play out? I mean, like Kate, the character played by Gemma Arts, and Gemma did a really brilliant job, I think, of playing the character. I have to say, she. She was so convincing to me, but. But she comes back, she's got this intelligence. There's immediately the question of whether it's false. Has the operation been rumbled? Is the conversation they've overheard been effectively staged for their benefit? Is this a hook that's going to reel MI6 in and have them chasing their tail for months and months on end? This is all stuff David, both of you will be more than very familiar with. And it's often struck me that there are some really big differences between journalists and intelligence agents, but there are some similarities. And the bit that's similar is the process of, you know, you develop your contacts and your sources and, you know, all the rest of it. You get a piece of information, then you try and assess, is it correct, is it true, is it right? And did someone have a vested interest in telling me? Might they have had a reason to mislead me? So I found thinking about all that kind of fascinating. And then there was the question of how are her bosses would respond. And, you know, obviously the ultimate boss of SIS is the Foreign Secretary, who of course is one of the chief suspects in the story. So I just thought that was an intriguing idea and you guys are the experts on this. But, you know, I'm interested to know how you think it would play out if you came back with that bit of intel.

[Gordon]

The closest one is some of the Trump Russia intelligence, isn't it? Which comes in, I mean, the Chris Steele dossier, which remains a very controversial thing. But when that comes in, he is thinking to himself, hang on a sec. This is suggesting that someone who's a candidate has been compromised in some way. What do I do with it? And it's certainly the case. It's interesting because in that case, it was a Brit who got it, although he'd been contracted by an American outfit, investigative outfit, to look for it, ultimately paid for by kind of other political candidates. But he's even thinking, in that case, how will they feel about this because of the special relationship? And I think you can see that for him at that point, he's thinking to himself, there's intelligence, which is so toxic and difficult that you can imagine your boss is thinking, I do not want to know that, which is not your job if you're an intelligence agency.

[Tom Bradby]

Or I don't want to believe it,

[Gordon]

or I don't want to believe it or not. Yeah, let's find a reason to discredit it or to not believe it, because it is too complicated for relationships to think it might be true. And I don't know. David, what do you think? When. I mean, that stuff must come in in a case.

[David]

Yeah. You know, I would think in particular, obviously, the higher up the politician, and maybe the less certainty you have over, you know, as in Secret Service, the less certainty you have over who it actually might be, would create all kinds of problems for a spy service and how you, how you disseminate that information, how much credibility you give it, you know, all these big questions that normally you don't have to ask if you're a spy service and you're disseminating product to your customers. But in this case, you, you absolutely would. And I imagine it would create all kinds of political problems, you know, in the, the upper management of MI6 or the CIA. I mean, it's. It's not an unprecedented thing for, for the Russians to turn a senior politician of a. Of a foreign state.

[Gordon]

Right.

[David]

I mean, there was the case, I don't know how many years ago was it, of. Of Austria's former foreign minister. Putin had, I guess, gone to his wedding.

[Gordon]

Yeah, Putin went. Went to a wedding. And then, yeah, she's now in Russia, you know, living. Living in Russia. You know, former Austrian foreign, foreign minister said. So I guess it is interesting, isn't it, because it is. It is entirely plausible that you could have a senior politician, even at the level of a foreign minister, who has, at the very least, murky relationship with the Russians. I mean, that is entirely plausible.

[Tom Bradby]

The other thing now is that we all have the experience of America. I mean, what ultimately happens in Secret Service, not to give it away, is that Kate's a sort of relentless truth seeker. That's the sort of core of her character. But when they ultimately take it to the Prime Minister, he says if I allow this to go forward and it leaks out, it's going to poison this election leadership race. And he's not wrong about that because it did in America. And you guys dug into that in a really clear way, I thought in your series and demonstrated beyond any doubt that that was one of the principal outcomes of that operation. So I think there are things to really think deeply about and that's quite apart from no one wanting to, in any walk of life to go and tell their boss something that's really explosive.

[Gordon]

Yeah, the interesting parallel, other parallel here I think is not, is not a politician, but it's the question of whether Russia interfered in Brexit. And this was a very kind of, this is a charge some people have and some people believe it. I know Alastair Campbell, our co host, is a big kind of, you know, proponent of this idea. But one of the interesting things that came out in an intelligence oversight report, the so called Russia report, was that MI5 hadn't really looked at it and also hadn't been asked to look at it by the politicians. And it was interesting because you can imagine what's going through politicians minds if you're say, you know, this would be, I don't know, Theresa May and you've just had this very divisive vote in the uk, do you want to open up the question and start even looking at whether there was foreign interference in it? I mean, the answer may have been no, or may have been it was quite minimal, or might have been, didn't make any difference. But once, once you inject that idea of Russian interference, as you say, you poison the well of politics because it becomes an accusation people throw around and you know, then they become, and it immediately politicizes the intelligence agencies and draws them in to something which I think they're very uncomfortable doing. Mean, I think the British agencies, having watched them closely, they do not like going near politics. You know, if you're MI5 or an organization like that, or MI6, you've just got this instinctive, you know, kind of fear of being drawn into it because you just know that it's dangerous. And there have been times in the past, I think in the 80s MI5 got drawn into, you know, investigating whether left wing groups were infiltrated by communists or backed by KGB or Soviet funds. But it meant investigating kind of effectively political groups and whether it was CND or others, and people were uncomfortable at that extent of being used politically or being embroiled in politics. So I think it's a real tension, isn't it? David?

[David]

It makes me think of the, I guess I say recent, but I want to say it was well over a year ago. There was the case of a handful of conservative commentators and podcasters who were being unwittingly, it seems, paid by the Russians and supported by the Russians in the US And I don't believe that any of them were prosecuted or, you know, as is unregistered foreign agents. And I don't think you could make the case. I'm not even sure the DOJ tried to make the case that they were sort of taking tasking from the Russians. But you end up with this very murky, hard to pin down method of influence in which the Russians were financially backing a bunch of kind of very right wing conservative commentators and podcasters. And yet, just by virtue to your point, Gordon, of anyone even trying to investigate it or bringing it up, it becomes instantly political. Really, you end up having debates around, well, you know, is the, because I think at the time it was the Biden doj. It's like, well, is this a political witch hunt? You're just going after some conservative commentators, you know, you're not actually trying to go after, go after the Russians. And so it becomes instantly sensitive to even look at a case like this. Tom, I guess, I mean, question for you is, I mean, as a journalist, political editor now, you know, writing, writing these novels, I mean, how much have you seen Russian influence in British public and kind of political life? Like, is this, are you seeing it more and more? I know it's hard to quantify, but how, how common are these kind of stories in, in British politics?

[Tom Bradby]

Well, Russian influence came with Russian money, which just flooded in after 2010. I mean, they were buying up Knightsbridge, they were sending their sons to Eton, and they were occasionally donating money to political parties if they were British citizens. Nothing wrong with that. But there just was this massive change. And as I've said, the thing that's always bothered me, and I guess it's part of the idea for the novel and the TV drama was, you know, you have to be really careful in Britain by saying that British MPs aren't well paid because of course, by the standards of the average salary, they are well paid. But I think most people living professional lives in London would Certainly not say that MPs are overpaid. And as I said, it's really, really difficult to, you know, get money for your local party. It's really difficult to fund national political campaigns. I just. I think our politicians are really quite susceptible to that. And there was obviously the case of Nathan Gill, which, let's be honest, came from an FBI tip off the former leader of Reform in Wales, at one time very close to Nigel Farage. And I really dug into that when it happened because I sort of wanted to understand it. Like, you're a leading. You know, he's, he was a Mormon. He gave interviews saying that he'd been most inspired growing up by his grandparents. Stories of World War II and the sacrifice. And, you know, then he's. He's taking cash from the Russians. From Russians. Pro Russian speeches at the European Parliament. I mean, it's just. It's kind of. It's just wild to me that it happens. So I think the truth of the matter is there's probably a bit less Russian influence here than there was 10 years ago, but there's more danger that what there is is potentially pernicious. And when I, you know, talk to people in MI5, they seem pretty hard pressed to me. I mean, they don't say, yeah, we've got it all under control. They're like, no, it's hard, it's tough. And we're, we're, we're, we're under the gun a bit.

[Gordon]

Yeah. And I think it is part of the problem that if you're MI5, you know, catching a Russian spy doing spying, passing over classified documents, that's one set of actions. But trying to deal with money, politics, social media influence, it's just subtler. It's harder to kind of sometimes get a grip on. And I think that Russian money has been flooding in for a long time. And for a long time, people did, I think, turn a blind eye to it. I think that has changed now. And I think, you know, we've had Skripal, we've had the invasion of Ukraine, so there's been a shift in the uk, but some of it's quite deeply embedded. And I think, as you said, MI5 have got a lot on their plate and actually investigating politics, investigating candidates, investigating where the money is coming from to candidates. I think they're still both for resource reasons, but also for a kind of slight squeamishness that they don't want to be kind of checking every donation to a political party. If you're MI5 and be investigating everyone.

[David]

Why do we think we're having a long conversation about Russian interference and not, for example, Chinese interference? Now, obviously, they both do it to some degree, but. And I think we talked a little bit about this, Gordon, in our series on interference in the US Election. But it is a. It is a fascinating kind of fundamental piece of this, that we're not talking about another country doing this stuff. We're. We're talking about the Russians, and we're talking about instances all over Europe and the United States and frankly, the globe where the Russians do this. And it doesn't seem like anybody else quite, you know, has the same toolkit.

[Gordon]

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think the Chinese do it. We've had some cases in the UK in Parliament of alleged, you know, still under investigation, some cases being dropped, links

[David]

to China, but not at the same scale.

[Gordon]

No.

[Tom Bradby]

My impression, I just wanted to put to you on that is the way someone characterized it to me not very long ago is the Chinese are basically engaged in stealing everything. They're hacking everything. They're stealing everything. Data, information, intellectual capital, because they've got volume, just huge numbers of people working for them. Half the time they don't know what they want with it or what they're going to do with it or even what value it has, but they want to have it. Whereas it seems to me that Russia is a sort of more actively hostile force. Go back to the very start of the conversation. If you make the argument that by having Donald Trump in the White House, somebody who's essentially quite pro Russian, you have potentially peeled off America from NATO or made America an unreliable and NATO ally, that if the Russian intelligence services were to claim credit for that outcome, you might say, well, they don't deserve it. It was just one of those things that just happened anyway. But they would probably say if they were sitting here, well, that's the most successful intelligence operation. Operation of the last 50 years. And who knows? Maybe they're right. And I just think, well, if they could peel Britain off somehow, you know, I could imagine a British populist leader who says, do you know what? Estonia. I'm not sending British lads to die in Estonia. Do you know what? I don't want to spend tens of billions of pounds on a nuclear deterrent. We're a small northern European country. What the hell do we want that for? You know what? I'm not increasing defense spending. I'm going to, you know, build. I mean, you could. You could write. I could write you the man Hesto. Now So I sort of feel like we talk about Russia because it's more. I think they're both doing it, but Russia feels like a more imminent threat.

[Gordon]

Yeah, I think that's right, because I think with China, it wants a certain degree of influence. It wants, you know, maybe certain things on the agenda. Not on the agenda, but with Russia, I think it really does want to do things like, you know, undermine NATO. And I think it's worked out that if you want to destroy NATO, it's actually going to be easier for it to do that through political interference and poisoning debates and shaping political attitudes and pushing certain narratives than through military action. And it can achieve a lot of its aims, quite hostile aims, quite direct, tangible aims, but it can do those through a kind of mix of great different kinds of gray zone activities. You know, whether it's some sabotage as well, and cyber attacks, but also through, you know, political interference as part of its toolkit. So I think it is just a much more kind of directed, immediately hostile activity than maybe the Chinese more general influence. That would be my sense of it.

[David]

Well, I guess also, I mean, this is a point that John Cipher, former CIA officer and also friend of the friend of the show we did a livestream with a while back on Epstein and the Russia connection. He has made the case in writing for many years now that Russia is effectively an intelligent state and its foreign policy is conducted primarily by its intelligence services. And those intelligence services, going back even to sort of czarist times, had embedded in them this concept of active measures, of not necessarily going out and just stealing plans and intentions, secrets around capabilities, but in actually shaping the environment around Russia politically to make it more amenable to Russian interests. And so I think that is different from the way the Chinese have used their intelligence services. I mean, to your point, Tom, it's. The Chinese are engaged in a massive, you know, sort of generational wealth transfer program back to China of all kinds of IP and commercial secrets and all of that. The Russians, I'm sure, do that. But the Russian services bureaucratically just seem much more focused on kind of trying to shape the environment around them. Hence why it would make sense to be paying, paying off British MPs to create division in the country and try to tilt British politics in a more pro Russian manner.

[Tom Bradby]

We're obviously hoping our series catches a wave and we've obviously tried to make it very sort of gripping and entertaining. So hopefully people will romp through to the end and go, okay, we want series two now. So we, we've started Work on series two. And not to give anything away, but you know, you are in a world where a very populist political leader might have even more power than he had in series one. And I've sort of, I've sort of been trying to lock myself away and actually think that through. So imagine a really populous leader in Britain sort of running the Project 2025 playbook. What, what would that, what would that actually be like? Well, you defund the BBC for a start. That'd be like day one, you would probably have a go at itv. You, I mean you would do some easy stuff very early. And you, you might, you might take a very isolationist stand. You know, we don't want to get involved in Estonia and like, imagine that. And then, you know, a right wing leader in Germany or even an ultra left wing leader, but, or France, you know, you pick off a couple of big European countries and not only is NATO not, not meaningful, but European collective defense isn't either. Now I'm not saying those things are going to happen, but you will have seen that when we had the 12 day war with Iran and then the latest war and the Internet was shut off, there was a reporting that a whole bunch of pro Scottish independence accounts went silent. Now it's not to say there aren't lots of people who favour Scottish independence. There are, but the study I read said that, you know, 4% of the posts in 2024 were from those accounts that they identified when they were switched off. Well, if you think of Iran's doing that, isn't Russia doing it times 10? So I don't want to be paranoid about it, but I think the risk is there, wouldn't you say?

[Gordon]

No, I absolutely do think it's there. And I think if you're Russia, political interference allows you to kind of shortcut. It's a shortcut to get your foreign policy goals. And the higher in politics you can get someone, or the more political influence you have, the more you can shortcut, you know, the other process of trying to manage public opinion or trying to persuade it or do other things because you can have someone who if you like, is in politics and can shape public opinion themselves or now you can do it remotely through social media. You know, Russia's in its toolkit, got these ways of trying to shape decision making and political thinking in our countries through either, you know, funneling money to candidates or, you know, having its own agents there or through remote social media and claiming you're, you know, a local person when in fact you're Russian. All of that just gives it these new weapons through which to kind of achieve its goals. And I think. I think they. They know what they're doing.

[Tom Bradby]

Do you guys feel cheerful in outlook, if that's not a stupid question? Because I start, we're always cheerful on this program.

[Gordon]

Can you not tell?

[Tom Bradby]

Well, you're always entertaining and informative. I don't know. Is that the same as cheerful? I don't know.

[Gordon]

Maybe not.

[Tom Bradby]

Well, the reason. The reason I asked the question is, is I started out in journalism in 1990, and I, you know, the year before I came in, I was like, mostly bunking off my studies to watch the Berlin Wall come down or the, you know, the Velvet Revolution in Prague or the violent revolution in Romania or shortly afterwards, Mandela being released. And you felt like the world was on this arc of, you know. And then, of course, there were the Yugoslav wars and stuff that went wrong, but that felt like, yeah, in. Against the pattern of a broader arc going in the right direction. And I can't quite shake at the moment the sense that the world is broadly going in a less positive direction on a quite steady arc the other way. And I don't want to feel not cheerful about the prospects, but I wonder what you both thought.

[Gordon]

I think I, too, am a kind of child of the 90s of that era, and lots of bad things did happen in the 90s. I think it's always worth remembering that you had, you know, kind of Rwanda and, as you said, the Balkans and these things. But there was still an optimism there, which I. I fear. And I mean, going back to where we started, I think you can imagine what they would have called in the past, a general war. You know, you could imagine these scenarios in a way that I don't think we would have thought plausible 20 years ago, 30 years ago, even maybe 10 or 15 years ago. The idea, either with China or with Russia or, you know, some combination of that something where. Where we're all in. And I think that that feels different. That feels different.

[David]

Yeah, I would agree.

[Tom Bradby]

I think.

[David]

I think there has been a revenge of geopolitics. There has been a failure of whatever multilateral institutions and machinery we had designed to try to control these impulses. That is clearly not helping to solve big transnational problems. And I also think in the States, we've had a, you know, we've. Obviously, we've had a collapse of our own political consensus on our. On the US Role in the world. I mean, there was always debate, but there was far more uniformity in opinion across both sides of the aisle, you know, 30 years ago about what the US should be doing in the world than. Than we have today. So I think all, all those things together for me, as a American who lives in Texas or are kind of, you know, that makes me a little gloomy. That's not a cheerful outlook. I think it's not going to be. The implications of those are not. Are not positive. So I would share Gordon's gloomy view. We can't end this show on such a bad movie.

[Tom Bradby]

No, we can't.

[Gordon]

No, no.

[Tom Bradby]

We should be cheerful. Yeah, this show is good listening. I mean, not this one per se, but your show is great listening. If you have listeners listening to this and you're enjoying it, you should subscribe. It's a great show. Here I am doing your ad for you, but it's worth it.

[Gordon]

Well, thank you, Tom. I mean, what about. We often ask our guests, you know, any, any favorite spy thrillers, spy films, books, TV shows? You cannot plug McCloskey. That's one of the. Well, you can if you want, or you.

[David]

You can plug. When did we institute that rule, Gordon? No, we've never had that rule.

[Gordon]

You can go somewhere else with it. Go somewhere else with it. We'll take that for. We'll take that as a given. But, you know, because you've been writing about this stuff for what. When did your first novel come out, Tom?

[Tom Bradby]

My first novel came out Was that Shadow Dance? Yeah, shadow dance. In 98, I started writing. I came up with the idea wandering down the Falls Road in West Belfast in about late 1993. The thing that really fascinated me then, so I will answer you, answer your question. But the thing that really just gripped me, and it's never stopped gripping me is I walk, walked from lunch with a senior member of the Special Branch, and I walked up to basically a press conference at the Sinn headquarters, you know, which was full of known IRA people. And I'd found myself just drilling in, as I often did with the Special Branch guy, into the business of running informers. And I know you're about to talk about this in Steak Knife, but I just found it so fascinating because these are people who speak the same language, who often live only a couple of. Of miles apart. And, you know, you're running someone and if you make a tiny mistake, that person is going to be killed by their, you know, their own organization. So I found that fascinating. And I found it fascinating from that day to this. So there have been some quite good shows. There was a sort of, I Did a shadow dance of the book and then the film, which was directed by the same guy we got very lucky with Secret Service, the TV drama. We've been talking about this out on Monday 27th April. But part of the reason I think it's come out as such, what I hope is a very, very high quality product is because we had a. Basically an Oscar winning film director. And the reason we got that is because he and I made Shadow Dancer together. And I've been trying to get him back to do something ever since and he's done an amazing job. But. And there weren't good things made about Northern Ireland, but there've been a couple of really good. Say nothing is very good. I don't know if you've seen that on Disney, Keith. Yeah, yeah, and it's.

[Gordon]

We have, we've had him on there.

[Tom Bradby]

Yeah, it was, that was, that was really good actually. So, yeah, that's probably the best. I mean, it's kind of not specifically about spying, but it's sort of that territory. And I, I have to mention David, because I really, really. I'm about to start reading the Persian. But I really enjoyed his first book and I'm not gonna. And the reason I really enjoyed it is when you write thrillers, you. It's really difficult reading other thrillers. I don't know if you find this, David, you've sweated away on your own structural engine so much. When someone else doesn't get theirs right, you're like, oh, I can see the cracks in this. But I thought obviously the authenticity goes without saying, but it was just. I thought it was really well constructed and that made it a pleasure to read. So you're welcome. Thank you.

[David]

I appreciate that. You know what? This is a window into my own sick psychology is. I almost, I almost appreciate Gordon's pain more than the compliment that you just gave me. Gordon's pain at hearing the compliment is more satisfied. But no, in all seriousness, thank you, Tom.

[Gordon]

Thank you very much for joining us. It's been a great discussion and a really great chance to kind of, you know, kick around these really important issues about Russian political interference, not just in the context of Secret Service and the drama, but also more generally and just how important they are, you know, given. Given your experience as a journalist. So thank you, Tom, for joining us.

[Tom Bradby]

Well, it's been.

[Gordon]

Come back.

[Tom Bradby]

Well, I'd love to be. It's been an absolute privilege. And maybe just one final point on the drama, I think. I mean, I really hope this succeeds. I sort of I really believe in it and I hope it's a great watch. But we're trying to make something that is, you know, that is beltingly entertaining but is trying to tackle some of these themes. And I feel like spy dramas have, which I enjoy tremendously, have got a bit heightened and, you know, there's 27 people dead and we're only two minutes in and, and I like those shows, I'm not knocking them, I really like them. But I was brought up on Le Carre and Data and I'm not trying to compare myself to those because that would be obscene. But it would be really nice if we can make a show that is hopefully tackling more complex themes that really lands because then we'll be able to do some more.

[David]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's, that's well put. I think, I think the best spy dramas, whether they're films or, you know, books do that, right? They take the human drama and link it to some bigger, you know, piece of what's going on in the world today. That's, yeah, that's, that's spot on. So, Tom, thanks for being with us.

[Gordon]

This is a great time.

[Tom Bradby]

Thank you, Tom. It's been great. I've loved it. Thank you for having me.

[Gordon]

This episode was brought to you by itv.

[David]

In this line of work, the real danger is rarely what you can see. It's what you stop questioning.

[Gordon]

The people you trust, the systems you rely on, the assumptions that start to feel fixed. Because once something is inside the system, it no longer looks out of place, it looks like it belongs.

[David]

And that is what makes it so hard to detect. Secret Service on ITV is a fictional drama about what happens when trust outlives scrutiny. A high octane political thriller based on the best selling book by this episode's guest, Tom Bradby and starring Gemma Arterdon and Rafe Spall.

[Gordon]

It all comes back to one uncomfortable idea. The enemy's closer than you think.

[David]

Secret Service starts Monday 27th April on ITV1 and ITVX.

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