Former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has admitted to behaving like a “right pillock” after publicising the rough location of the home of Alex Younger, current head of MI6, Britain’s foreign spying agency.
In a social media gaffe condemned as “quite extraordinary and utterly reckless” by former SNP deputy leader and House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee member Angus Robertson, Davidson tweeted that Younger “splits his time between Edinburgh and London” and “his house is within line-of-sight” of a certain Scottish location.
On 30th March, New Statesman journalist Chris Deerin reported on Twitter the new head of domestic spying agency MI5, Ken McCallum, was Glaswegian. In return, controversial SNP MP Stewart McDonald noted "Head of 6" - a reference to Younger - also studied in Glasgow. Davidson - who won ‘e-politician of the year’ at an awards ceremony in 2015 - then leaped in with her potentially national security-threatening disclosure.
Assuming the bit on his house is meant to be a joke? If not, I’m not sure the head of Mi6 would be overly excited to see the rough whereabouts of his address published...
— Stewart McDonald MP (@StewartMcDonald) March 30, 2020
The tweet has since been deleted, although McDonald’s reply, in which he enquires whether comments about Younger’s residence were “a joke” and suggests the MI6 chief wouldn’t be “overly excited” to “see the rough whereabouts of his address published”.
“Why on earth she thought it was a good idea to publicise the home location of the head of MI6 is utterly beyond me,” Robertson added.
