Slow Horses author explains why spying is so very English

by · Australian Financial Review

Hannah TattersallActing editor, AFR Rich List
May 7, 2026 – 5.00am

There’s a scene in London Rules, the fifth book in Mick Herron’s Slough House spy series about a band of dysfunctional MI5 agents, where a far-right populist politician gets hit on the head by a falling paint tin. It’s brutal: violent, dark – and, like much of Herron’s prose, extremely funny.

The paint scene made it from the page onto the screen, where it was even darker (and the paint even brighter) in the latest series of the hit television adaptation, Slow Horses, which stars Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, the super-smart, potty-mouthed, farting, whisky-sculling head of misfit spooks.

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Hannah TattersallActing editor, AFR Rich ListHannah Tattersall is the acting editor of the AFR Rich List. She was previously a work and careers reporter for The Australian Financial Review. Email Hannah at hannah.tattersall@afr.com

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