In the UK, news has leaked that the likely successor to Sir Alex Younger as the Chief of SIS (MI6) is Tom Hurd, 55, currently director-general of the Office of Counter Terrorism. This is bad news in two ways. First, it is another man (so much for diversity). Second, he is a member of the “Old Boys Club” (so much for social mobility). Hurd is ex-Eton and Oxford and a contemporary of Boris Johnson with whom he is apparently still good friends. His father is a former Foreign Secretary further reinforcing Hurd’s OBC image. The Old Boys Club (or OBC as the network of ex-public school boys is known) has plagued the management of SIS for decades. It was the dominance of the OBC that allowed Kim Philby to infiltrate it senior ranks in the 1940s and 50s. Not much seems to have changed. A woman was in the running for the post, Dame Karen Pierce, but she is now to be Britain’s ambassador to Washington. The only other possible contender is one of the current directors who is also a member of the OBC.
