Baroness Meta Ramsay, a former MI6 officer once tipped to become the agency’s first female chief, has died aged 88. Tributes have been paid by intelligence and political figures, including former MI6 head Sir Richard Moore, who described her as “wise, kind, fun”.
During her 22-year career in the Secret Intelligence Service, Lady Ramsay rose to become its most senior female officer. She played a key role in the 1985 extraction of KGB double agent Oleg Gordievsky from Moscow, one of the Cold War’s most audacious operations. In a rare interview last year, she described the challenge of recruiting agents without being mistaken for romantic interest, saying: “That’s an absolute killer if you don’t get it right.”
After leaving MI6 in the early 1990s, she became foreign policy adviser to Labour leader John Smith and later a government minister under Sir Tony Blair, where she helped steer the 1998 Scotland Act through the House of Lords. Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell called her “a remarkable woman” who “remained humble and gracious”.
Born Margaret Mildred Ramsay in Glasgow in 1936, she attended Hutchesons’ Grammar School and Glasgow University, where she became the first female president of the Scottish Union of Students. She was also active in international student politics before joining MI6.
