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Agencies

Britain’s spy agency MI5 is revealing some secrets.
In collaboration with host The National Archives and prepared over several years by the agency’s own archivists, “MI5: Official Secrets” is giving the public the chance to see equipment and methods used by real-life James Bonds and their colleagues over the agency’s 115-year history.
Ken McCallum, director general of MI5, said the agency wanted to be more transparent.
While TV fiction showed the dramatic side to spying, real intelligence work was about “ordinary human beings together doing extraordinary things”, he said at an event this week launching the exhibition.

One of the featured items is a 110-year-old lemon, used as evidence against German spy Karl Muller, who was executed by firing squad in 1915 at the Tower of London. Muller used lemon juice to write secret messages during World War I.
The display also includes confessions and surveillance reports relating to Britain’s most notorious double agents, known as the “Cambridge Five”, who spied for the Soviet Union between the 1930s and 1950s, and a briefcase abandoned by one of them, Guy Burgess.
“The reality of our work is often different from fiction – whether that fiction is George Smiley or Jackson Lamb,” McCallum said.
George Smiley is a character in author John le Carré’s books who works for overseas intelligence agency MI6, dubbed “The Circus” by le Carré, while grumpy Jackson Lamb appears in the TV show Slow Horses, leading a team of failed agents.

Many stories told in the exhibition would not be out of place in a thriller.
The lemon, now black and shrivelled, helped convict Muller. It was found by police in his bedside table, along with another in his overcoat pocket. Evidence at his secret trial showed their juice had been used to write invisible-ink letters detailing British troop movements.
In a coda that would not be out of place in Slow Horses, MI5 pretended Muller was still alive and wrote to his German handlers to ask for more money.
“The Germans duly sent more funds and MI5 used the funds to purchase a car, and they christened the car ‘The Muller’,” exhibition curator Mark Dunton said. “They then were reprimanded by the Treasury for unauthorised use of expenditure.”

The show includes declassified records held by The National Archives and items loaned from the secret museum inside Thames House, MI5’s London headquarters.
It charts the changing role of an agency that was founded in 1909 as the Secret Service Bureau with an initial staff of two officers.
There are records of its World War II successes, when the agency used captured Nazi agents to send disinformation back to Germany, deceiving Adolf Hitler about the location of the looming Allied invasion in 1944.
Failures include the years-long betrayal of the upper-crust “Cambridge Five”, whose members spilled secrets to the Soviet Union from the heart of the UK intelligence establishment.
Recently declassified MI5 documents on display include the 1963 confession of Cambridge spy Kim Philby, who denied treachery for years before he was exposed and fled to Moscow.

The exhibition also reveals changing attitudes, not least to women. The exhibition includes a 1945 report by spymaster Maxwell Knight discussing whether women could make good agents.
“It is frequently alleged that women are less discreet than men,” he noted, but declared that this was not so, saying that in “hundreds of cases of ‘loose talk’” most of the offenders were men.
There are admissions of past mistakes. The exhibition notes that MI5 was slow to recognise the threat from fascism in the 1930s, and later spent too much time spying on the small Communist Party of Great Britain. MI5 did not need to break into the party’s offices – it had a key, which is on display.
There are only a few items from the past few decades, showing how MI5’s focus has shifted from counter-espionage to counterterrorism. Displays include a mortar shell fired by the Irish Republican Army at 10 Downing Street in 1991 while the then prime minister John Major was holding a cabinet meeting.

MI5 only began releasing records to the UK’s public archives in 1997, generally 50 years after the events had passed. Even now, it controls what to release and what to keep secret.
“It would be a mistake to assume everything is in the exhibition,” said author Ben Macintyre, whose books on the history of intelligence include Operation Mincemeat and Agent Zigzag.
But he added it still marks “a real sea-change in official secrecy”.
“A generation ago, this stuff was totally secret,” he said. “We weren’t even allowed to know that MI5 existed.”
The exhibition opens on April 5 at The National Archives in southwest London and runs to September.
Reuters, Associated Press


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History

MI5 reveals secrets and tools of real-life James Bonds throughout its history

The first camera used by MI5 for spying, dated from 1910, is displayed as part of “MI5: Official Secrets”, a new exhibition exploring the history of the British intelligence agency, at The National Archives in London, on April 1, 2025. Photo: Reuters

A 110-year-old lemon that was used by German spy Karl Muller to write secret messages with its juice is displayed at the exhibition. Photo: Reuters

A flavoured water bottle and instant camera used to make a bomb, recreated by the Bomb Data Centre, which formed part of a foiled suicide bomber plot by al-Qaeda that attempted to blow up passenger planes between the UK and the US, is displayed at the exhibition. Photo: Reuters

Guy Burgess’ passport and briefcase are displayed at the exhibition. Photo: DPA

A Yardley talcum powder tin from 1960 used by one of the “Portland spies” to conceal microdot equipment is on display at the exhibition. Photo: AP

Photographs of Russians living in the United Kingdom who were all believed to be intelligence personnel and were expelled under Operation Foot in 1971 are displayed at the exhibition. Photo: Reuters

London Chinatown’s evolution from Hong Kong Chinese outpost to multicultural melting pot

Wardour Street, Chinatown, London. The area, which dates back to the 1970s, has evolved over time to become the multicultural enclave it is now. Photo: Getty Images

Chinese pedestrians on a street in Liverpool, 1940. A partially inflated barrage balloon can be seen in the background. Photo: Getty Images

David Tang Hon-sing (left), former vice-chairman of the London Chinatown Chinese Association, with a friend on Lisle Street in 1980. Photo: David Tang

A street in Limehouse, East London circa 1930. In the first half of the 20th century, Limehouse was home to London’s largest Chinese community. Photo: Getty Images

A large crowd watches traditional celebrations for Lunar New Year in Liverpool in 1983. Photo: Getty Images

People gather to watch the Year of the Snake celebrations in Chinatown, London, on February 1, 2025. Photo: Getty Images

A Lunar New Year parade in London. Photo: Allan Hong

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Pamela Anderson’s red Baywatch swimsuit on display at Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style. Photo: Reuters

Guest curator Amber Butchart adjusts a swimsuit on display in Splash! A century of Swimming and Style, an exhibition of swimwear and swim-related items at The Design Museum in London. Photo: AP

Swimsuits on display at the exhibition, which looks at swimwear and swimming through the decades. Photo: Reuters

The red bathing suit Pamela Anderson wore in Baywatch on display at the exhibition. Photo: Reuters

A selection of Speedo briefs from the 1980s help show the evolution of swimwear fashion at the exhibition. Photo: AP

A jumper British diver Tom Daley knitted, along with a pair of Speedos he wore at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 on display at the exhibition. Photo: AP

Regent Street, London’s must-see attractions amid plans to make it pedestrian-friendly

Regent Street (above) in London is going to be transformed into a pedestrianised entertainment destination. Photo: SCMP

The entrance to The Langham, London hotel next to All Souls Church at the north end of Regent Street. 

Shoppers outside Hamleys toy store on the last shopping day before Christmas on Regent Street, London. Photo: AFP

The interior of the Tudor-style Liberty London. Photo: courtesy of Ross Urwin

The Wigmore’s XXL Toastie. Photo: Instagram/@wigmorelondon

The Criterion Theatre is a grade II historical building at the bottom of Regent Street. Photo: Shutterstock

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Travel influencers Fernanda (right) and Vicente take a break in Spiti Valley, in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, during their six-year motorbike trip. The couple open up about Fernanda’s gang rape in India and other experiences during their trip, including being interrogated by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda and Vicente in Konya, Turkey. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda with a rented motorbike in Sri Lanka. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda and Vicente in Jodhpur, India. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda and Vicente camp near Kalut, in Iran’s Hormozgan province. Photo: Instagram @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda and Vincente at the Khunjerab Pass, in the mountains on the border of Pakistan and China. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda makes friends in Rajasthan, India. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda and Vicente in Samarra, Iraq. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda in Kuwait, approaching Saudi Arabia. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda and Vicente in Cappadocia, Turkey. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

Fernanda and Vicente near Passu, a small village in northern Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan region. Photo: Instagram / @vueltaalmundoenmoto

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The intelligence agency’s exhibition at London’s National Archives delves into Britain’s history of spying and includes a 110-year-old lemon


The intelligence agency’s exhibition at London’s National Archives delves into Britain’s history of spying and includes a 110-year-old lemon.


Britain

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