Stella Rimington - Post-MI5

Post-MI5

Rimington's work after leaving MI5 has been as a non-executive director for companies such as Marks & Spencer and BG Group.

Rimington controversially continued her policy of openness about the Service by publishing her memoirs, entitled Open Secret, in 2001. In July 2004, her first novel, At Risk, about a female intelligence officer, was published. Her other novels are Secret Asset (August 2006), Illegal Action (August 2007), Dead Line (October 2008), Present Danger (September 2009), and Rip Tide (July 2011). Her novels are part of a new trend of "insider" spy fiction appearing in both the U.K. and in the U.S.A.

In 2004, she continued her interest in archives, fostered by her early career, through involvement with the Archives Task Force, where she visited a number of archives through the country and contributed to the report for the future strategy of archives in the UK.

In November, 2005 she spoke out against national ID cards. She has also described the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks as a "huge overreaction." In remarks reported in 2009, Rimington expressed concerns that the Brown administration was not "recognizing that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state.”

On 5 October 2009 the BBC broadcast a statement from Rimington who claimed that certain MI5 files collected by her predecessors had been destroyed, but without clarifying whether this took place during her appointment as Director-General, or as part of her later involvement with the Archives Task Force.

In 2009, Stella received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Social Science from Nottingham Trent University in recognition of her support for openness about the work of the secret service.

She was chair of the judges for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. She and her fellow judges were widely criticised for focussing on "readability" rather than literary quality. Rimington responded during her speech at the Booker ceremony with a "diatribe" in which she compared British literary critics to the KGB.