"MI5's dossiers on Stern Gang members released this week cast the early years of the Cold War in a stark new light — terrorism, not the Soviet Union, was the main threat. The newly released files also have an enduring legacy. Many of the security techniques British intelligence developed to deal with the Irgun and Stern Gang — surveillance of extremist groups, border and port checks, liaison with foreign police agencies — were the same counterterrorist procedures later used against the IRA and current Islamist terror groups."

"The issues at stake in this reality TV series of presidential politics can be easily ridiculed—will Trump tweet?—but they are profound. Comey's Congressional testimony goes to the heart of the proper functioning of US democracy, being concerned with checks and balances on the executive branch, and, crucially, whether President Trump obstructed justice by exerting pressure on America's senior law enforcement officer."

"The disparity between British and US media reporting of the Manchester attack highlights a problem only likely to increase in the future: how to regulate reporting on national security issues in a free society, with a free press, in the digital age. With the world’s increasing interconnectivity, in which we can receive news from outlets all over the world to our phones, and even watches, previous arrangements to regulate British press reporting seem increasingly anachronistic."