The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 2

2 I NEWS The Guardian Tuesday November 25 1997 Ex-spy admits secrets deal Great leveller chooses a higher seat Law 'forces' guilty plea over book 9aHnMBaaBaaBHBHBaBaaaLtf' aSl. saaSaHBHBHBaaaaBHHn ftfflBiaa 'K 'nHHnLHLBDHBaLLBfl HBlBHflBBIBIHS khBShV v' B9aaaaaaaaaiBaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaBa BSfiXSSflHKHBKSKK jBnjMHBBBMBBBBr 'saBHBaaMBaaBaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal HhHb9HhsB9bd? fr VBaaBaVaaaaHaianB HHLaBaaBaaaaaaaaBaaaHaW mfLa JhaBBBBBBBBYBYBaBBBBBBBBBBBBaBBBaaBBBBBBBBBBBaV HBBHBhBBBHB trial tribunal after he was sacked by MI6 in 1995. The following year, he wrote to MI6 saying he no longer felt he had any moral obligation to MI6 because of the "disgraceful" manner of his dismissal. He moved to Spain where he again contacted MI6 saying he needed money. He said he had written a book about his MI6 experiences and intended to publish it on the Internet.

After he told MI6 he had approached a literary agent and articles appeared in the Sunday Times about his case, MI6 obtained an injunction preventing him from publishing further information. He subsequently signed an agreement with MI6 abandoning his claim for unfair dismissal and agreeing to hand over material in his possession in return for financial help. In April Mr Tomlinson went to Australia where he had talks with Judith McGhee, a book editor, and Shona Martin, a publisher with Transworld Publishers. He contacted MI6 asking for permission to write the book, adding that he would not accept "no" to his request, said Mr Gibbs. Under the 1989 Official Secrets Act, opposed by Labour when in opposition, former and serving members of the security and intelligence agencies must not disclose anything about their work.

Mr Tomlinson is being held in Belmarsh high security prison in south-east London. They passed it to MI6 who said it contained information about training, operations, sources and methods. However, Owen Davies, counsel for Mr Tomlinson, said the synopsis kept under lock and key by the Australian publisher posed "no substantial or realistic danger to national It is believed Mr Tomlinson was involved during his MI6 service in a plan to disable equipment suspected of being parts for a chemical weapons plant in a Middle East country- The plan was approved by a cabinet minister though there was a risk to lives of civilian workers. He also worked under cover in Bosnia where he met a Tory MP known to MI6 and who was concerned about secret donations by Serb businessmen to the Tory party. The MP contacted MI6 who warned Sir Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary, about the potential embarrassment to John Major's government.

Yesterday the court heard that Mr Tomlinson, aged 34, was prevented by a gagging order signed by Malcolm Rifkind, then Foreign Secretary, from taking an unfair dismissal claim to an indus Richard Norton-Taylor RICHARD Tomlin-son, the first MI6 agent to be prosecuted for secrets offences since the Soviet spy George Blake 36 years ago, said yesterday he had no alternative to pleading guilty even though the information he disclosed was He said he had wanted to plead not guilty but the draco-nian nature of the Official Secrets Act made it impossible there was no public interest defence. "I would have been guilty even if I had disclosed the colour of the carpets in the office," he said. The act lays down a maximum two-year prison term but Mr Tomlinson, who was committed for sentencing to the Old Bailey, is likely to serve significantly less. Colin Gibbs, prosecuting counsel, told Bow Street magistrates court in central London that Mr Tomlinson had prepared a seven-page synopsis of a proposed book for the Australian branch of Trans-world Publishers in Sydney. The synopsis was obtained by Special Branch officers.

Winnie Mandela her accusers Simon Hoggart VO politicians yesterday sat down where they had never sat before and where, perhaps, they had never imagined they might end their careers. The benches must have felt familar. The ample ribbed leather, strong yet yielding, warm and receptive, must have told the brain by way of the buttocks that nothing had really changed. Both men were greeted with warm cries of welcome from those waiting in their new setting. And yet both must have agonised painfully about their move.

Both surely woke in the the night with the awful familiar certainty that there can be no more sleep while the decision is turned over, again and again, until a murky yellow dawn filters through the curtains. Would this, they must have wondered, lead to a new and satisfying life, surrounded at last by political soulmates? Could they share the joyful relief of the trans-sexual, finally inside the body they had always desired? Or would their decision be seen as the ultimate treachery, leaving them mistrusted by their new comrades, despised by the old? Roy Hattersley was first, taking his place in the House of Lords. The Great Egalitarian walked in, a shimmering pile of red, white and gold, the pelts of dead furry animals draped over him like a vast Victorian Chesterfield. He preceded by Black Rod? and between the two men was the Garter King of Arms, his tabard a tapestry of the royal coat of arms, so thathe looked like a playing card from Alice In Wonderland, and one half expected the Lord Chancellor to shout: "No! no! Sentence first verdict afterwards!" The Reading Clerk declaimed the Letters Patent, the message from the Queen indicating that Britain's best-loved Leveller had finally succumbed to the prestige and the pull of the peerage. "To our right trusty and well beloved Counsellor, Roy Sidney George, Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook know ye that of Our like God, the Queen gets capital pronouns especial grace, certain knowledge and mere motion We advance, create and prefer Our trusty and well beloved Roy Hattersley to the state, degree, style, dignity, faces continued from page 1 the same time as Lolo.

She recounted how two young men had arrived at her house asking for her son, saying Mrs Mandela wanted to see him. They had his name and that of Lolo written on the back of a matchbox. Her son nqt in at. the time. She had subseauently received atelephqne call from her son.

far as telling her that ne was with Lolo when the call was cut off. "She did kill them, just like Stompe," $aid Mrs Shaba-lala, gesturing towards Mrs Mandela. "1 want Winnie to give my son back. I want his bones and remains." A lawyer representing Jerry Richardson, former aide to Mrs Mandela and "coach" of the football team, told the hearing that his client had applied for amnesty for the murder of the two youths and would testify later in the hearing. Richardson has previously confessed to at least two other murders, including Stompie Seipei, claiming he killed them on Mrs Mandela's orders.

The story of Stompie's death was the centre-piece of testimony by the last witness of the day Mrs Mandela's former driver, John Morgan. At her 1991 trial on charges of kidnapping and assaulting Stompie and three other youths, Mr Morgan gave crucial evidence supporting her alibi. He told the court she was in the town of Brandfort on the day the youths were kidnapped from a Methodist manse near her home in 1989. Mr Morgan told the truth commission yesterday that he had lied to the court about this. He said that he had driven members of the football club to the manse on Mrs Mandela's personal instructions to get the youths.

He had been present when they were taken into a room "next to the Jacuzzi" at the back of Mrs Mandela's Soweto home, where they were of Lords where he was appointed Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook photograph: john stillwell benches, grasped Dale Campbell-Savours warmly by the hand, and sat down, trying desperately to appear that he felt as much at home as in front of his own fireside. Labour MPs cheered. Most Tories looked either bemused or glum, except for the front bench, who had decided to laugh. Messrs Hague, Howard and Ancram laughed their heads off. I've rarely seen anything so obviously faked.

liberate glitch, designed to signal to his friends in the Gallery "this isn't really me, I don't hold with all this Either way, it's always nice to see a Guardian columnist honoured for anything. In the Commons, Peter Temple-Morris (Ex-Con, Leominster) waited until Tony Blair had begun to report to the House about the latest European summit. He walked briskly to the Labour attacked in her presence. He said Mrs Mandela had led the assault, delivering the first blow to Stompie. Members of the football club had then joined in.

"They were throwing these boys up in the air and then dropping them so that they would bounce back on the floor," he said. The next day Stompie's face was "as round as a football. I tried to feed him coffee and some bread, as he was not in a position to help himself'. Mr Morgan said that on the third day the teenager was "in a critical A Soweto doctor, Dr Abu-Baker Asvat whom Mrs Mandela has been accused of subsequently having killed was brought to the house to treat the boy. "Asvat refused and said the boy should be sent to hospital." The next day Mrs Mandela told Mr Morgan to "take the dog and go and dump but he had refused.

Stompie was later found in a field with his throat slit. photograph: peter Andrews Tragic farce where nothing is everything Roy Hattersley in the House title and honour of Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook You wondered whether someone had given Her Majesty a copy of Roget's Thesaurus as an anniversary present. "And for Us, Our heirs and successors do appoint, give, and grant unto him the said name, state, style, dignity that he may have, hold and possess enjoy and use all the rights, privileges, pre-eminences, immunities and advantages shows how Ionesco's vision of life's essential meaningless- ness is itself exuberantly theatrical. That is the paradox at the heart of this classic of fifties Absurdism. A nonagenarian couple live in a circular island tower.

They fondly reminisce, play games, pass the time much like Beckett characters. But the Old Man has a message to deliver which hordes of guests, existing only in the couple's fevered imagination, assemble to hear. And the message itself is entrusted to an orator who turns out to be mute and who inscribes senseless words on the wall. His Lordship truly declared and affirmed that he would bear true allegiance to Her Majesty (fingers uncrossed, so far as I could see), signed the paperwork and trotted off to the backbenches. There, flanked by his supporters, he rose, bowed and doffed his hat three times to the Lord Chancellor, who had a tricorn, like DickTurpin.

The new Baron was late for his second doff. It was a duff doff. A natural error, or a de Ionesco's philosophy is bleak and debatable: that existence is a void, religion and ideology useless and communication impossible. But Ionesco contradicts his argument both by transmitting his despair and by showing the old couple bound together by a touching, indissoluble loyalty, Above all, he makes his vision of emptiness abundantly theatrical. McBurney seizes on this to give us 90 minutes of sheer theatrical bravura.

The Quay Brothers' design, Paul Anderson's lighting and Paul Ardit-ti's sound conjure up a complete world: we hear constantly lapping water, the old couple occupy a metallic, multi-doored, mouldering room and the arrival of the guests is a superb display of orchestrated frenzy. Bells, hooters and klaxons sound while panels and doors disgorge tangled chains of chairs in surreal profusion. It is the most startling coup de theatre since Daldry 's An Inspector Calls. But McBurney's production, Martin Crimp's agile new translation and Richard Briers' and Geraldine McEwan's performances also bring out the play's paradoxical humanity. Briers is no se nile grotesque but a solemn, overgrown baby swivelling his head in dismay at mention of the word "geriatric" and petulantly stamping his foot at the need to deliver his message.

McEwan meanwhile endows the mothering Old Woman, for all her wrinkled stockings and mane of profligate hair, with a wonderful friski-ness: imagining herself seduced by one of the guests, her hands caress her waist in a sensual reverie. Ionesco called his play "a tragic and this production perfectly captures that paradox. Michael Billington The Chairs Royal Court Downstair NOTHING, said Lear, will come of nothing. Not true in the case of Ionesco's The Chairs. "The theme of the play," said the author, "is nothingness." But Simon McBurney's brilliant new production, jointly presented by Theatre de Compli-cite and the Royal Court, Satur Witness Katlza Cebekhulu with former MP Emma Nicholson 'v'- nday -A than 50p with of you said you'd ifymtrf during November and DmwmkKwflFlMk You aBc'tij Cable Wireless.

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