Rory Cormac

I can see that happening too. This chasing rainbows is just another example of something unsustainable in the sector, I guess 😞

Late 1992: Stella Rimington was invited to lunch at Buckingham Palace. Uncertain of protocols re the first publicly named spy chief, the royals announced it in the Court Circular. Dozens of press turned up desperate for pics and so the royal household had to help her slink out a back exit.

Totally unsurprising. I wish someone would total up the amount of time and money spent chasing these rainbows. Scrap funding awards and just give us all £2k a year to go down the archives and to a conference!

Tom understands fairness. He went to private school 😉

It's pretty galling that a scheme to widen access into fast track gets a lot of hate, especially when 1/4 senior civil servants were privately educated in 2021.

We're in 2025 and parts of HMG remain a club.

Does adobe scan let you text search the docs? I’m also massively tight though which also hinders my archival ability

I’m archivally ill-disciplined and unhygienic. After 20 years, I now use excel to keep track of files and camscanner to photograph files and convert them to pdf. That’s it. And word. Oh and 2 screens which makes me feel very professional and hi-tech. No referencing software though…

Asking for pre-publication endorsements is something I find very nerve-wracking (anyone else?!?) but a top comedian, writer and broadcaster just said “Fakers” is “laugh out loud” funny!

Absolutely buzzing! It’s out next spring.

Matthew Goodwin, Reform and the politics of resentment The ‘heterodox intellectual’ turned populist is a morbid symptom of the digital age

“Evidence for the culture war is to be found in his professional setbacks, such as failing to secure research grants”

Nah, if failing to secure research grants sent you right wing I’d be to the right of Atilla the Hun!!

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/philos...

Poster with caption 'New publication from Dan Lomas' and book cover image

"The book is a social history of how attitudes to sexuality and race have shaped Whitehall and have unintended consequences today"

📚 @sandbaggerone.bsky.social on his new publication 'The Secret History of UK Security Vetting from 1909 to the Present'

ℹ️ tinyurl.com/ms3vn6b8

Earlylands in Conversation - Episode 8 - Historian of Covert Action & Intelligence Professor Rory Cormac Earlylands in Conversation · Episode

Really enjoyed talking secret statecraft and covert ops with Earlylands

“Historian of Covert Action” is a pretty cool sounding gig to be fair!!

open.spotify.com/episode/6zei...

Looking forward to seeing the book in print, including my chapter on a century of Moscow's covert actions

You can only put so much lipstick on my pig!

Despite vowing never to (co-)edit a book, I made an exception for this:

A much needed attempt to free “covert action” or whatever the hell you want to call unacknowledged interference from its US-centric scholarly baggage

Thanks to all involved.

press.georgetown.edu/Book/Covert-...

Photo of Rory and quote from Joint Committee National Security Strategy letter - "the bigger threat is not whether an election outcome was affected by foreign interference, but 'the perceived legitimacy of those elections and the trust people have in the outcome' "

Fantastic to see a Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy letter to the security minister and chair of the defending democracy taskforce cites evidence from @nottspolitics.bsky.social's @rorycormac.bsky.social

Read the letter in full here ➡️ tinyurl.com/ynxs3txs

Just finished this. Fair play to @terrystiastny.bsky.social for imposing a highly readable narrative on total bureaucratic chaos!

cited - unnervingly prominently - in a Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy letter to the security minister & chair of the defending democracy taskforce:

Subversion is about fear / eroding trust as much as it is about actually changing outcomes

committees.parliament.uk/publications...

Thanks. Watching the new Jurassic park film. Rock and roll!

Oh awesome! I’ve never been on a sub. I bet you also got loads of cool experiences working for the spy museum too. I’d add to my list of cool experiences once getting behind the scenes access to the museum

Cover of report 'Defence in the Grey Zone'

Great to see research centre SUIT's written evidence to the Defence Committee has been cited in the 'Defence in the Grey Zone' report, suggesting there needed to be greater coordination of counter grey-zone activity

Read more about the report here ➡️ tinyurl.com/ey3wrn9e

Which got me thinking, as I turn 40 tomorrow, about other random adventures the job (for all its flaws) has provided. From tv to tours of Downing Street and the pentagon, from hobnobbing with real authors at book festivals to giving evidence in parliament.

What’s your most random ac-experience?

Last year I filmed a tv show in a nuclear bunker with comedian Russell Kane. Today I’m off to film in a molecular biology research lab with Lucy Worsley.

Love academia and its random adventures sometimes!

Always nice to be cited in a Defence Committee report recommending greater coordination between the many actors engaged in information and counter-disinformation operations

www.nottingham.ac.uk/suit/news/20...

homer simpson sits at a desk with a stack of books including the code mistress of death and depressing days ALT: homer simpson sits at a desk with a stack of books including the code mistress of death and depressing days

To those who say exams are unrealistic and anachronistic forms of assessment:

Today, I am cramming before being grilled on a topic for an hour and a half tomorrow.

V unlikely… you just have to wait ages for the first docs to arrive

Been waiting a long time for that…

I was reading it outside bush house the other day … I should’ve sent a photo

a close up of a man 's face with the words you can 't handle the truth ALT: a close up of a man 's face with the words you can 't handle the truth

Relieved that my forthcoming book, Fakers, on British Cold War forgeries, fakes and black propaganda has passed the publisher’s legal review

(Life would be so much easier researching something boring!)

The latest in our @edinburghup.bsky.social series… and it’s another belter!

Hahah love that!

Alas no