英国首相官邸曾被窃听15年

　　MI5 used hidden electronic surveillance equipment to secretly monitor 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet and at least five Prime Ministers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal。

　　The extraordinary disclosure comes despite a succession of parliamentary statements that no such bugging ever took place. And it follows a behind-the-scenes row in which senior Whitehall civil servants – backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown – attempted to suppress the revelation。

　　The Mail on Sunday has learned that top-secret files held by the Security Service show it installed electronic listening devices in three highly sensitive areas of No10 – the Cabinet Room, the Waiting Room and the Prime Minister's study from 1963 to 1977. It means that for nearly 15 years, all Cabinet meetings, the offices of senior officials and all visitors to the Prime Minister – including foreign leaders – were being bugged. The disclosure is highly shocking in its own right but it will also bring genuine concerns as to why the Cabinet Office still wants to suppress it。

　　Comments from MI5 chief Jonathan Evans suggest that the attempted block was not done on grounds of national security but for wider public interest reasons. This must raise the possibility that the bugging was carried out for political purposes and officials do not want to admit it went on in the past because similar operations are continuing today。

　　Now this newspaper can reveal the deletions relate to the eavesdropping devices that were first installed in Downing Street in July 1963 at the request of the then Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. It is unclear why Macmillan made the extraordinary request, although it came a month after his War Minister John Profumo had resigned after admitting a relationship with prostitute。

　　Following Harold Macmillan's departure, the bugs were briefly removed. But according to the secret files they were reinstated months later on the orders of new Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home. The bugs remained in Downing Street throughout Douglas-Home's term and also the premierships of his successors Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. It was finally removed on the orders of James Callaghan in about 1977, the year after he took office。