Name: Spies and British Prime Ministers
Start: 2026-05-05T19:00:00+01:00
End: 2026-05-05T20:30:00+01:00
Location: The Levinsky Theatre

Professor Richard Aldrich explains how Britain's Prime Ministers became both reliant upon & imperilled by growing intelligence agencies.
About this Event

Spies and British Prime Ministers

Professor Richard Aldrich University of Warwick

In the early part of the 20th century prime ministers were often naively indifferent to espionage and secret intelligence. Increasingly the relationships between intelligence agencies and Number 10 became much closer, especially from the time of the Second World War. The increasing power of PMs since the war went hand in hand with the growth of the secret service. However, Intelligence also imperilled more than one British prime minister.