I didn't say this at all, so please don't put words in my mouth.
> Secret services got their start in Elizabethan (I) England and it does have something to do with British history
This simply isn't true. Spying goes back a long way for various reasons, both state-security related and religiously-motivated.
> Feudal societies had no notion of “citizen”.
You're correct. I should have said "subject."
> Nor was the “government” ever tasked with ‘caring’ for the poor.
Churches were part of this but the monarch was either the head of the church (post-Tudor) or were at least God's anointed Prince of that domain. There are many recorded cases of people suing their local lords for abusing their position, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. The fact is, there were clearly laws on the books to allow the big government to protect people from the small government. These cases predate Tudor England.
> which gave rise to the British “manor”, for the first time the notion of poor houses became central.
So you're saying that the state did take a responsibility to care for people.
> The other historic “British” factor here is the propensity of the English for intrigue.
This isn't exclusive to the English at all. The later British Empire became famously good at spying (all the way up to WW2 and beyond) but it's not unique to the British. Besides, the Byzantine Greeks and the Russian Empire are historically more renowned for intrigue and internal plotting. But again, they weren't the only ones doing it.