Baroness Meta Ramsay, a former MI6 officer who was once tipped to become the first female head of the intelligence service, has died at the age of 88. Former MI6 chief Sir Richard Moore paid tribute, describing her as 'wise, kind, fun' and a 'trailblazer for women in MI6'.
During her 22-year career, Lady Ramsay rose to become the service's most senior female officer. She played a key role in the 1985 extraction of KGB double agent Oleg Gordievsky from the Soviet Union, one of the Cold War's most audacious operations. After retiring from MI6 in the early 1990s, she entered politics, serving as foreign policy adviser to Labour leader John Smith and later as a government minister under Sir Tony Blair.
Politicians from across the spectrum paid tribute. Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle called her 'an incredible life' and 'highly respected'. Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell described her as 'a remarkable woman' who remained 'humble and gracious'. Former health secretary Wes Streeting said her life was 'the epitome of public service'.
Lady Ramsay once gave a rare insight into the delicate art of recruiting agents, noting the particular challenges as a female operative. 'You're cultivating someone and you haven't got to the stage – because you want to recruit them – of asking them that, yet you're making all the signs of being very happy, and wanting to see him and have lunch,' she told The Sunday Herald in 2024. 'That's an absolute killer if you don't get it right.'
Born Margaret Mildred Ramsay in Glasgow in 1936, she was educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School and Glasgow University, where she became the first woman president of the Scottish Union of Students. After a career in international student politics, she joined MI6. Her proudest political achievement, she said, was helping to steer the 1998 Scotland Act through the House of Lords.
