Torture, whoever carries it out, degrades the values we uphold

Britain’s intelligence and security services are admant that they do not practise, condone or turn a blind eye to torture. 

They get angry about any suggestion that this is not the case, with Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, firing off a rare and indignant article to the press only last week. 

But the demand for a full and frank inquiry into the claims of complicity in detainee ill treatment is fast becoming irresistible. 

Mr Evans has admitted that the Security Service was “slow” to detect changes in US policy that allowed a range of abusive techniques to be used.

But the idea that the intelligence services’ mistakes were the result of naivety is hard to sustain. Who can forget those images from Guantánamo Bay of al-Qaeda detainees hooded and shackled? The Americans released the pictures to show how tough they were prepared to be in the War On Terror. But they horrified people and soured sympathy for the US. 

It is stretching credibility to argue that, having seen those propaganda pictures, Britain did not think there was something very questionable about the way our most important ally was treating terror suspects. 

The counter-terrorism agencies make a better argument: 9/11 changed their world in an instant. MI5, the domestic intelligence service, was half its current size and had to shift its focus from Irish republican terrorism to al-Qaeda.

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