As a childhood reader of spy novels, I acquired high expectations of the secret world. British spies would be flamboyant and exceptional Bond-types. But looking around the post-university scene, I realise that all the people I knew who became spies are dull. There was the humdrum civil service fast streamer who mysteriously ended up living in Portsmouth, the location of MI6’s training camp, for a few months. Another vanilla acquaintance abandoned post-university travels plans to move to Cheltenham, home of GCHQ. There was an unmemorable trainee Army officer whose digital footprint disappeared without trace.
The four main British intelligence services — MI5, MI6, GCHQ and Defence Intelligence — employ around 20,000 people. And yes, a lot of those work in IT. But with a bit of quick maths you can say that around one in every 2,000 working-age Briton is in some sense a spy. And how dull they must be to keep their secrets. The intelligence services’ own consciously grey recruitment adverts now offer applicants the chance to “fulfil all their career ambitions” and enjoy “an excellent range of benefits”.
Sir Ed Davey has said that MI6 offered him a job after university but he turned it down in favour of the Liberal Democrats
To the extent we have any famous public figures who are known former intelligence assets, they are not exactly dazzling personalities. The politician-turned-podcaster Rory Stewart has never flat-out denied repeated claims that he worked for MI6.
Sir Ed Davey has said that MI6 offered him a job after university but he turned it down in favour of the Liberal Democrats, “so I never became Double O Davey”. I find that more interesting friends never quite made the cut. I know a bright young woman, now a talented journalist, who admits she got through to the end of the MI5 recruitment process. After an apparently deal-sealing final interview, her application fell apart on final vetting. To this day she doesn’t know what it was. A discrepancy on her CV or some dark family secret? Only the truly beige go the whole hog.
Another was tapped on the shoulder at his prestigious university by a languages professor who asked quaintly if he “would be interested in doing some work for Her Majesty?” He couldn’t resist telling a few friends and soon the offer — genuine or not — evaporated.
The realisation that spies are dull disappointed me at first. But then I thought twice. Our most famous real spies, Kim Philby and Guy Burgess, were indeed the flamboyant, clever, raconteurs I had imagined as a child. They were also traitors whose betrayal killed thousands. So maybe in this area, boring is better.
