Monitor: The Sunday newspapers comment on the continuing flow of revelations about Britons spying for the Communist bloc

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THE MEN and women - and it seems that there were hundreds of them - who believed, not merely that the Soviet Union was no threat, but that it should actually be helped in its quest for world domination, were, of course, profoundly deluded. They were also profoundly stupid. But now the cold war is over, and ideological treachery a thing of the past, many have come to the conclusion that treachery is a thing of the past too. That is a very elemental error. Espionage flourishes whenever nations compete for power and men can be corrupted, and the motives of money and power are as potent today as they ever were. The new generation of traitors, motivated by greed, are not more despicable than those who betrayed this country out of intellectual pride and vanity. But they are going to be more difficult to catch.

The Sunday Telegraph

MI5'S FAILURE to tell Downing Street about the specific allegations concerning both Norwood and Symonds amply demonstrates that nothing has changed in the past two years. None of this came as a surprise to me. From the minute I left MI5 and decided to go public, I always intended to pass on my criticisms of MI5's outdated management practices to those in a position to influence its future direction. I have been frustrated at every step of the way. I am not surprised, therefore, that MI5 still gives the impression of bumbling incompetence. But of all the things I have heard in the past week, it is the unwillingness to prosecute former KGB agents that still sticks in my gullet. Spies like Norwood and Symonds are given immunity whereas I, who would never betray my country, am exiled for speaking out. (David Shayler, the former MI5 agent)

The Mail on Sunday

THE RAG-BAG of traitors have one thing in common, besides betraying their country. None of them was ever prosecuted by the Security Services, who came on their activities far too late in the day. Indeed some of them were not even interviewed, and government ministers were only told about them years afterwards, when action was ruled out as futile. In some cases the strange reluctance of this country's security services to disturb the spies who were lurking in our midst could be explained by the need to stop other investigations being blown. However, there remains a sneaking suspicion that the Intelligence Services have been more interested in protecting their own reputation than in guarding the nation's secrets.

The Sunday Mirror

FOR SOME, espionage was an honourable profession performed on behalf of one's own country. The most despicable did it for money. Norwood hardly made herself a fortune. There was also a category of "traitor" who did it for political conviction or moral belief. Whether we call them fools or heroes depends on your point of view, but most believed that their own state had come to represent iniquitous imperialism. The good that has come out of the espionage game has been accidental: a levelling of the playing field produced by the interaction of two sides each trying to tilt it their own way. On many occasions, superiority of one superpower could have led to the globally damaging use of nuclear weapons. We have grown up with the threat of nuclear holocaust and so far have managed to avoid stampeding into it. For what it's worth, we owe that to the spies. (Peter Millar)

The Sunday Times