It Couldn't Happen Here

It Couldn't Happen Here is a title the episode spends its hour proving wrong. Burnside and the SIS learn that a senior Cabinet Minister, a protégé of the Prime Minister, is a spy for the KGB. That alone is bad enough. But the Prime Minister already knows everything there is to know, and will not act. When Burnside broaches the idea of taking action themselves, for the good of the Nation, the PM and Sir Geoffrey Wellingham refuse in that measured, polite way that leaves no room for argument. It would not be the British way. Burnside gives his word to stand down. He keeps it.

Along the way his CIA friend has been complaining about the FBI and its possible involvement in the wave of American assassinations in the 1960s. The conversation leaves Burnside with an uncomfortable thought about what governments get up to at home, and how little anyone wants to look at it. The episode doesn't labour the point. It just lets it sit there.

In the parallel story both Sandbaggers are packed off to America, where the killing of one senator means extra security at his funeral and for another. Caine draws the short straw: a senator whose damn the torpedoes attitude to life could cause the protection team real grief, and probably enjoys the thought.

Written by Ian MacKintosh and directed by Peter Cregeen, first shown on 25 February 1980. Roy Marsden leads as Burnside, with Richard Vernon's C, Ray Lonnen's Willie Caine, Alan MacNaughtan's Sir Geoffrey Wellingham and Jerome Willis as Matthew Peele. Michael Cashman, Bob Sherman, Jana Shelden, Elizabeth Bennett and Daphne Anderson complete the cast.

The refusal at the heart of it is what stays with me. Burnside is told no, accepts it, and keeps his word. For a man whose whole trade is finding ways around things, that is the rarest move of all. Nothing blows up. That's the point.