“MI5 keeps the UK safe by watching for and disrupting threats to national security such as terrorism, espionage and cyber attack. ”

Ah, advertisements for government jobs. They’re so Orwellian, so glib and completely lacking in modesty. We keep you alive! Everything that is good simply cannot be without us! We are the omnipotent and omnipresent Savior.

Of course, these “threats to national security” only exist because the UK government exists. Terrorism is a repercussion of past overseas aggressions by the government. No government, no terrorism. Dito for espionage and cyber-attack, which of course actually mean spying on government and cyber-attacks on government systems. No government, no centralised power to spy on or systems to hack into.

So the belief that MI5 (government and the army) render us safer than we would be without their existence is obviously false. In reality, MI5 and the army keep us perpetually in danger of threats that without them and what they do would not exist.

Imagine if someone you knew who, for the last six months had sent abusive emails and letters to everyone you knew under your identity, was now insisting that you pay him (indefinitely) for standing outside your door in order to protect you from the ‘threat’ of all those pissed off people; and insisting that you should be grateful to him for ‘keeping you safe’. You ask him why he did what he did under your name and he replies that it was because he represents you and your needs, wants and preferences. You reply that attacking all those people was not what you wanted at all, and he explains that it was, but you just didn’t know it was. He explains that it is his job to know better than you what is best for you.