Top spy in coma after collapsing at home

BRITAIN'S top spy, Alex Allan, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, is unconscious and seriously ill in hospital, it emerged last night.

It is understood that he collapsed at his home earlier this week.

Early reports suggested there were concerns he had been poisoned. But government sources insisted there was no sign of foul play.

And police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his illness.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "We were made aware of a man in his late 50s who was taken to a London hospital after being taken ill at his home.

"He remains in a serious condition. This is being treated as non-suspicious."

Mr Allan's wife, Katie Clemson, an artist, died from cancer in November.

He was a civil servant who worked mainly in the Treasury, before becoming principal private secretary to both John Major and Tony Blair when they were prime minister.

He took the post of high commissioner to Australia in 1997.

In 1999 he became e-envoy for the government, co-ordinating policy on e-commerce among different ministries, before leaving that post and moving back to Australia a year later. He returned to the UK in 2004.