GCHQ

Centre of the British government's electronic surveillance operations, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. It monitors broadcasts of various kinds from all over the world. It was established after World War I, and was successful in breaking the German Enigma code in 1940.

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In addition there are six listening stations: Bude, Cornwall; Culm Head, Somerset; Brora and Hawklaw, Scotland; Irton Moor, North Yorkshire; and Cheadle, Greater Manchester. There is an outpost in Cyprus. In 1982 Geoffrey Prime (1939– ), a linguist at GCHQ, was convicted of handing the secrets of US spy satellites to the USSR. The right of GCHQ employees to have trade-union representation, which had been denied by successive Conservative governments, was restored by the Blair government in 1997.