Trust me: I'm the head of MI5

[conspiracy analyst]

In the discussions we have had over what actually happened on 7/7 both eye-witnesses and their backers have argued that
a) they have been shown the evidence which has not been made available to the wider public
b) we have to take the police at their word

essentially to trust both what the eye-witnesses have said what happened and the official media. This is what is being sold as a line and guess where it comes from, the horses mouth directly...

Trust me: I'm the head of MI5


o Peter Preston
o The Observer
o Sunday November 11 2007

Here's a wondrous irony. The theme of the conference (for 200 or more of Britain's leading editors) is 'Trust', a word provoking much media concern from the BBC down. And Day Two's guest speaker? Why, on his first public outing, it's Jonathan Evans, the new head of MI5. 'There is no contract or memorandum of understanding between us,' he declares. 'It is a matter of trust'. But then the trouble starts.

Evans is a big, somewhat owlish chap in a grey suit. He talks in a matching grey monotone, describing the 'al-Qaeda franchise', 15-year-old kids trained to kill and plots against Britain masterminded from Waziristan rather like Alistair Darling announcing fresh wobbles at Northern Rock. And he formally ups the total of 'active terrorists' in Britain from 1,600 to 2,000 - with maybe as many again out there, but so far unidentified. You can see his audience taking notes and already guess the headlines about 'child bombers' and escalating threat. QED.

But where, pray, does the big 'T' word fit in here? We trust MI5 to help defend us against terrorists - but that core task has nothing to do with purveying absolute truth to men with notebooks. Evans could be (a) inflating the estimates to make terror cells think they'd been penetrated; (b) playing down the actual figures to induce a false sense of security; (c) exaggerating his success a little in order to win extra funds from Whitehall that he genuinely believes are necessary; or (d) giving the Home Secretary a helping hand over her 56-day detention ideas - to be, not coincidentally, unveiled in the Queen's Speech 24 hours later. And only lack of space stops me extrapolating to (e), (f), (g) and (h) too.

There is, coldly considered, absolutely nothing here to be trusted - or, indeed, consumed without a health warning. No verifiable facts, no checks, no balances. Yet there's also nothing to blame Super Spook for. He's doing his job - which is to keep the bad guys guessing.

Do wise editors know that? Probably, though that didn't stop the pretty uncritical wave of follow-up headlines. Does this tell us something specific about trust that we all ought to remember? Absolutely.

Should we trust the deputy director general of the BBC when he asserts, in open session, that his great corporation is 'never pompous'? Should we trust the Daily Telegraph's incisive new editor when he tells critics who don't trust his way of measuring his website's audience to push off because it's none of their business? Are we - to be honest - always totally trustworthy when we report our own internal affairs to you, revered Joe and Joanna Public?

Trust, as copiously debated over three days by the Society of Editors, is specific, not general. A local paper editor doesn't want to run an unreliable rag because nobody would buy it. A national editor wants names and places spelt correctly in print, because getting them wrong betokens wonky amateurism. A paper that makes mistakes ought to put them right in public, because putting your hands up is the honest thing to do. A TV station that cheats on phone-ins is a disgrace.

But extrapolating specific examples into some overarching thesis embracing all media is a stride too far (especially in a week when 15,000 BBC employees begin attending trust workshops). Do you trust every Daily Express story about Diana, every Daily Mail horror story about Brussels, almost any story anywhere about Madeleine McCann? That doesn't stop them drawing huge audiences - and maybe, on occasion, being possibly true. Do you trust Polly Toynbee or Melanie Phillips? Piers Morgan or Alastair Campbell? Trust isn't a smorgasbord of news and views; it's particular, and often individual. It's absolutely not uniform in its various demands, for otherwise a kind of sombre boredom, full of rules, regulations and mission statements, ensues.

And it is there for you, the reader or viewer, to recognise individually: for Paxman or Humphrys, for Pearson or Littlejohn, for Rawnsley or D'Ancona. Generalised trust reflects how broadcasters and editors like to think of themselves, balm for their self-image. But the trust that matters - far beyond a thousand workshops, contracts and memorandums of understanding - is the one you discover for yourself.

· The Bancrofts, remember, were the mighty family who would save the Wall Street Journal from Rupert. Then they sold out and cashed in, with the 'safeguard' of a family member on News Corp's top board. But they argued and drifted through the 30 nominating days allowed, so Mr M chose his own best candidate - Natalie, a 27-year-old London-based opera singer. Cue rather too much jeering and sneering from all the usual (rival) suspects.

In fact, Natalie Bancroft seems an eloquent observer of WSJ matters. She was against selling, but pungently wondered if 'we are no longer capable of being responsible stewards of the present business'. She'll be 10 years younger than the next 'voice of youth' (Lachlan Murdoch) around the boardroom table. She'll also be a woman leavening 15 men (on specific Rupert insistence).

Is the Daily Mail and General Trust - with its all-male board - laughing? Or Richard Desmond's all-male Northern and Shell? This could be a pulsating show - and it ain't over till the mezzo-soprano sings.