Another woman set to be spy chief

Another woman is expected to be appointed as chief of MI5, becoming only the second to head the security service. The first, Dame Stella Rimington, took charge in 1991.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, currently Deputy Director General of MI5, is considered the strongest candidate among a shortlist of four to take over from the current Director General, Sir Stephen Lander.

Her apointment is expected to be announced next month - provided it is approved by Home Secretary David Blunkett and the Prime Minister.

The Oxford graduate, who would earn around £150,000 a year, is expected to take over in October when Sir Stephen retires, reports said today. She was tipped as a potential successor to Sir Stephen when she was appointed Deputy Director General in 1997.

Sir Stephen took over in 1996 from Dame Stella Rimington, who left to write a controversial book about her career. The other heads of the intelligence services are men. The current Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) is Sir Richard Dearlove and the Director of GCHQ, the top secret government listening post, is Sir Francis Richards.

Miss Manningham-Buller, who is said to want to continue with Sir Stephen's attempts to make the service more open and transparent, has been described as a "feisty lady full of character and intellectual drive".

She is the daughter of a former Conservative Attorney-General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, who became the 1st Viscount Dilhorne on his appointment as Lord Chancellor under Harold Macmillan.

Miss Manningham-Buller, born Elizabeth Lydia in 1948, became known as Eliza at Benenden, where she was a contemporary of Princess Anne.

There is no official CV for her and she makes no appearance in Who's Who, but she appears to have been recruited into MI5 from Oxford University, where she was a prominent member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society and was pictured when she appeared, aged 20, as the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella. Her performance was described as "absolutely wonderful," by the pantomime's producer.

After graduating from Lady Margaret Hall she worked briefly as an English teacher - her pupils included Nigella Lawson - then began working her way up the MI5 career ladder.

Now 53, in 1991 she married David, the son of an Army officer, about ten years her senior, who has five children from a previous marriage. He used to lecture in Moral Philosophy at St Andrews University, where contemporaries recall a "complete hippie", admired as much for his home-made beer as his scholarship.

In the mid-Seventies, he became disillusioned with academic life and moved to Bath where he retrained as a carpenter.

Miss Mannningham-Buller spent some time in Washington in the 1990s as MI5 liaison officer at the British Embassy and has also headed A branch, which handles the agency's surveillance operations. In her current role as Deputy-Director General she has responsibilities for both operations and administration.

She has two sister and a brother, John Manningham-Buller, the 2nd Viscount Dilh o r n e, a barrister.

Her elder sister Marian said: "She never talks about her work, and I do not see her often because she is so busy".