My name's TANSLEY, JAMES TANSLEY
Our recent by-election victor in Tunbridge Wells East is James Tansley. James is a former diplomat and served, amongst other postings, as UK Rep in Southern Iraq. During the campaign a rumour circulated that he was an MI6 agent. I raised this with James who strongly denied the internet-based rumours but added, "there's little point denying it as no-one will believe the denial anyway". His subsequent comment, "and if anyone wants to confirm that I wasn't a spy I suggest they phone the MI6 Press office!" did little to convince me!
James has just sent me this marvellous mock-up of a James Bond poster, produced by his brother, which he has given me permission to publish on my blog! For the sake of those who don't know, his LibDem opponent was called Dave Neve!
Now James, do you really think this will dampen the rumours?
Very Amusing post. Is James Tansley an MI6 agent? Humm ... well, at senior levels of the diplomatic and civil service there is not a straight line between the security services and the civil and diplomatic services. Really MI6 for all its glamour and fast cars etc is just another branch of the civil service.
ReplyDeleteOne thing we do know is that Mr Tansley gave private evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War. The transcript is on the website but we have animated a little for you here
http://www.pearshapedcomedy.com/Reconstruction_goes_Pear_Shaped_in_Iraq.html
There is an amusing extranormal video where we have "reconstructed" Mr Tansley moaning that he ended up in Iraq because the number of arabic speakers the FCO could summon up could be counted on the fingers of ... if not one mitten then a pair.
So is he a spy?
Well, let's just say James Bond had a 1st in oriental languages. Thanks for the picture. Always nice to put a name to a face.
This is utter B*llocks. I've worked with James overseas and he was certainly not an MI6 officer.
ReplyDeleteAnon - I know enough people in the service to neither care nor be impressed if James was or wasn't. However, the above cartoon, provided to me by James himself, is amusing in it's own right. By the way - the single biggest source of Google traffic to this blog is the search term "was James Tansley an MI6 agent" ! I know JT finds this as amusing as I do ;)
DeleteNo argument that it's amusing.
ReplyDelete