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Secret Britain: One Hundred Years of Secrecy

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One Hundred Years of Secrecy

16/08/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Secret Britain, One Hundred Years of Secrecy

Peter Hennessy, the leading Whitehall watcher, looks at government secrecy.

Peter Hennessy, the leading Whitehall watcher, tells the story of British state secrecy and explores the tension between official secrecy and more openness.

Kicking off Radio 4's Secret Britain series, Peter Hennessy, the leading Whitehall-watcher, tells the story of the Official Secrets Act and explores the tension between Britain's culture of state secrecy and more open government.

One hundred years ago, in the hot summer of 1911, Asquith's Government exploited a scare about German spies and a panic over a German gunboat in a Moroccan port to rush a new Official Secrets Act through parliament. The measure was presented as being necessary for national security, but ministers seized their opportunity to extend the law much further. The Act included a 'catch-all' section that forbade the unauthorized disclosure of anything about the government's work, including innocuous matters that posed no possible threat to national security.

Peter Hennessy explains why Britain developed a culture of state secrecy and shows how politicians kept politically inconvenient information secret. He examines how reform of official secrets eventually came and explores the tension between the competing needs for secrecy that protects national security and more openness in a democracy. 

Producer: Rob Shepherd.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Series examining the role of state secrecy in Britain

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