Peter Taylor The Guardian, Wednesday October 23, 2002
When Dan joined the Metropolitan police special branch in 1964, he was astonished when a senior officer warned that it was "quite likely that in 10 years Britain could become a Communist state". The new police recruits were being introduced to the subversive agenda of the Communist party of Great Britain, the prototype "enemy within". Its intention, they were told, was to use the trade unions as a revolutionary instrument to undermine parliamentary democracy. "It felt as if you were paddling in a pool of subversion," Dan says. Soon the pool deepened as the Vietnam war radicalised thousands of young people and swelled the ranks of Trotskyite organisations.
...
For the Metropolitan police, Grosvenor Square was a wake-up call. Special branch needed to rethink its intelligence-gathering techniques. Sources within the revolutionary left who'd traditionally passed on the odd titbit in return for a few pounds and a pint simply weren't enough. As a result, an elite unit was set up within special branch whose existence has been kept a closely guarded secret until now. It was known as the "special demonstration squad" - or less prosaically as the "hairies" because of the way its officers dressed, looked and lived. "It was a shadowy section of the branch where people disappeared into a black hole for several years," says Richard, a veteran hairy.
I think we've got an agent provocateur posting on Urban. I hope they're paying you well to post this nonsense.
