Nigella Lawson 'turned down MI5'

Nigella Lawson turned down the opportunity to join MI5 on the advice of her father Nigel, it has been claimed.

A new book from Gordon Thomas has suggested that the TV chef rejected the offer from the Security Service after she studied at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University.

In Inside British Intelligence, Thomas argued that Nigella was connected to MI5 through her former Queen's Gate schoolteacher Elizabeth Manningham-Buller, who later became director general of the service.

Thomas said: "M15 also 'approached' her, but Nigella's father, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had given his daughter similar advice, 'Steer clear of the intelligence people.'"

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