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MI5 and NALGO

01 May 1991

Alan Jinkinson the general secretary of the National Association of Local Government Officers(NALGO) has revealed how MI5 tried to recruit him when he was a district officer for the union. In l952 while on national service Jinkinson worked in Austria for the Signals Corps which supplied intelligence to the Government Communications Headquarters(GCHQ). Fifteen years later in 1967 when he was a rising district officer for NALGO he received a "plain brown envelope" at his home inviting him to a meeting. The meeting was in a "dingy spartan little room at the end of a musty corridor in Whitehall". The meeting was presided over much to Jinkinson's surprise by an old army friend and fellow member of the South Kensington Labour Party now dressed in a smart pin-stripe suit. The friend told Jinkinson details of his recent life including the names of partners meetings he attended at the Labour Party Conference and what he had for dinner with a prominent diplomat. At the end of the meeting Jinkinson signed the Official Secrets Act. At a second meeting Jinkinson was given the strong impression that MI5 viewed him as a potential recruit. "I always remember the reply I gave him. I told him: "Sorry mate I'm a coward"". Public Service the NALGO monthly newspaper says that intelligence analysts have told it that NALGO and NUPE have been the subject of increasing levels of surveillance and interference by MI5's F2 Branch which specialises in surveillance of the labour movement. The two unions are involved in merger talks together with the health workers union COHSE which could create the largest public sector union in Europe. The paper says: Measures being taken include increasing attempts to gain access to friendly" union officials interference with telephone and postal communications the placing of false or slanted information in the media and deliberate smears of union personnel analysts said." Public Service, April 1991; NALGO News, 6.9.90; Independent, 21.3.91.