Diary: Meet top secret 'Kate', one of the LGBT employees of GCHQ

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/05/meet-kate-gay-lesbian-employee-gchq

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• Heady days for the home affairs select committee as it considers the grilling to be endured by Andrew "Nosy" Parker, the boss of MI5. He says the Guardian's Edward Snowden revelations have been like catnip for terrorists, but he's economical with the specifics. Should he be pressed in public or in private? And will anything be said about the claim, forwarded this week by the committee's feistiest inquisitor, Tory Michael Ellis, that the Guardian deserves censure for referring to the fact that there are gay and lesbian members of staff at GCHQ? We tried to tell him that was nonsense; there are statements about the diverse workforce on the Stonewall website. He didn't seem impressed. Perhaps we might hear from "Kate". We don't know her second name, and if we did we wouldn't tell because we're patriots. But we can say that she is a "business capability consultant" because the GCHQ recruitment material actually features her. "GCHQ is an exciting organisation to work for," says "Kate". "We have an active LGBT network and a culture that recognises and values high-achieving individuals, and invests in and supports its staff, regardless of orientation." As it should be. Hardly top secret.

• When Michael Ellis laid down that trusty sword of feistiness during Tuesday's select committee meeting, it was grabbed by his colleague Mark Reckless, the Tory MP for Rochester and Strood. He has gained much stature since that unfortunate headline in the Mail on Sunday in 2010: "I was too drunk to vote on budget, confesses Tories' Mr Reckless (or should that be Legless?)." Many welcomed his insight not least because, like Snowden, Reckless worked for the US government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, in the MP's case as a strategy consultant and associate in the Financial Services Group. Reckless was there in the late 1990s. Plenty for six degrees of separation.

• MPs confused about what could and shouldn't have happened in the reporting of Snowden might consult the former MP and Sun on Sunday columnist and uber-critic of the Guardian, Louise Mensch, for she has been a model of consistency and good sense throughout. On 9 June, the word from her blog, Unfashionista, was: "Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian has come up with the biggest scoop since Watergate in exposing the extent, breadth, depth and overreach of the Prism programme. He must win a Pulitzer prize, there can be no doubt about that whatsoever. Tonight he published an interviewer with the whistleblower, Edward Snowden , who has fled to Hong Kong. A fairly lowly IT guy who could listen, as he said, to your wife's phone calls with no problems at all. Snowden comes across as a genuine patriot. Although he praises Bradley Manning, unlike Manning he has put no American asset at risk, exposed no soldier." As long as that was the view, it was pretty clear. MPs with technical concerns about secret stuff could really do worse than seek out Mensch. "Haven't Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenberg (sic) and the Guardian heard of Dropbox? Or P2P filesharing sites? There are a million ways to store locked data in the cloud," she blogged on 22 August. The next day, more techno wisdom: "If he [David Miranda] was transporting purely 'journalistic materials' why did Greenwald not use FedEx? If the data needed to be secure, why not use a P2P fileshare site?" Not security advice we would bother with, but for others she's definitely the oracle. If you didn't know, she could be the father of the web Tim Berners-Lee.

• The shale gas farrago gathers pace, meanwhile, with everyone keen to have a piece of the action. Allegiances count for nothing. John McGoldrick, chief executive of the Australian firm Dart Energy, is a lifelong Manchester United fan. Still, there's a rich seam in Chester and Cheshire, he told potential investors. "That is where all the Manchester United players live. I can't wait to drill in Rooney's backyard."

• Yes, it's all about the Benjamins, as the Americans say – with reference to the Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill. Many worry about the Benjamins involved in the Chilcot inquiry into how we went to war with Iraq. Launched in 2009, it has been dogged by problems, not least whether the panel can see the 25 notes sent by Tony Blair to George Bush. And the cost of the inquiry, reiterated this week, is at least £7.4m. The chair gets £790 and his panellists £565 for every Chilcot-ing day.

<em>Twitter: </em><em>@hugh_muir</em>

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