Who Needs Enemies

Burnside's enemies are mostly in the building, and this episode is about the damage they can do with paperwork. It starts with the medical officer suggesting that Burnside is stressed and ought to rest, which in the SIS is the same as being told your judgment is going. Deputy Chief Matthew Peele sees his opening and moves the new Director of Intelligence, Paul Dalgetty, into position. The manoeuvre is textbook: make the man look fragile, then make him look dangerous, then make him superfluous.

The real weapon arrives in a CIA assessment of the SIS that describes Burnside as a major negative influence. It circulates. It sticks. The assessment was meant for American eyes, and its quiet circulation around Whitehall is its own kind of attack. Upper management starts talking about promoting him sideways to Madrid, which everyone understands is a promotion in name only. And just when the thing looks settled, Burnside does what he does best: he goes to see Jeff Ross and gets a different account of the assessment entirely. He goes on the attack. The counter-attack is Burnside at his best, direct and aimed squarely at the people who tried to bury him.

Written by Ian MacKintosh and Gidley Wheeler, directed by Peter Cregeen, first shown on 14 July 1980. Roy Marsden carries it as Burnside, with Jerome Willis's Peele, David Robb's Paul Dalgetty and Bob Sherman's Jeff Ross. Ray Lonnen, Dennis Burgess as 'C', Michael Cashman, Sue Holderness, Edith MacArthur and Harry Webster complete the cast.

The title is the review. The warfare here is fought entirely in minutes and memoranda, and it's harsher than anything the service does abroad. You root for Burnside the whole way, which is exactly what the episode wants, and you feel every inch of the ground he loses before he starts taking it back. For an episode about office politics, it lands a surprisingly hard punch.