CHELTENHAM, THE GENTEEL, quintessentially English spa town that sits at the base of the limestone escarpment marking the western edge of the Cotswold Hills, is dominated in the first two weeks of July by the music festival; this year, according to the Daily Telegraph, a “shrewd mix of tradition and novelty, guaranteeing some very special musical experiences.”

This was utterly lost on Trevor Walker, the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, as he was driven through the suburbs of Cheltenham to meet Prime Minister Oliver Little. Not only was Walker totally uninterested in music, but with the country now effectively at war with Russia and a new Prime Minister in Number 10 Downing Street, he was preoccupied with ensuring his new boss’s power base in the parliamentary party was secure.

The Toyota Hybrid Prius from the Whitehall car pool drew up at the gate of the Government Communications Headquarters and, after security checks, Walker was let in to the 176-acre site, dominated in the center by the concentric-ringed, steel, aluminum and stone “Doughnut,” the largest building constructed for intelligence purposes outside the USA. Staffed by 5,500 employees, the purpose of GCHQ is to provide signals intelligence to the British government, its various intelligence services and its armed forces. Soon he was at the helipad with the GCHQ Director, Ian Berry; breezy, early forties and fit, looking more like a rugby-playing, public-school housemaster than the head of one of the world’s most pre-eminent spy agencies.

But thankfully, before he found himself having to make small talk about radios or the internet, or whatever these boffins liked to discuss, the clatter and then the roar of the red-and-white liveried AgustaWestland helicopter of 32 Squadron RAF obliterated any chance of a conversation as it landed. Moments later the Prime Minister was out and being buffeted by the fierce downdraught before being whisked away from the landing pad and into the principal conference room of the Doughnut.

Walker walked in behind his boss to see, as well as the GCHQ team brought together to brief the PM, the shaven-headed Chief of the Defense Staff, General Jock Kydd. He was dressed in his habitual, faded jungle-green combats without rank badges, sleeves rolled up high to reveal large, hairy biceps. As ever, Walker found he was unsure whether he was impressed or frightened by the man. Impressed because Kydd had immediately made things happen, unlike his Machiavellian predecessor. And frightened, not only because of the feral nature of the man, but also because he had an uneasy feeling that, if he said the wrong thing, the general would happily rip his head off.