I’d hire Smiley ahead of Bond, says head of secret service

WHEN it comes to British secret agents, James Bond is the most recognisable name there is. But he isn’t the best in the business – at least not according to one person who should know.

Alex Younger, the head of MI6, reckons Bond should be outranked by his less famous colleague, John le Carré’s spy-catcher hero George Smiley.

In a letter to the Economist, Mr Younger wrote that le Carré’s novels portrayed a “moral equivalence” between international spies that he was not wholly comfortable with. But he approved of the author’s more complex portrayal of the secret service.

Le Carré’s novels detail how Cold War-era spies deal with double agents in a British intelligence system reeling from the betrayal of Kim Philby, who fled to Moscow in 1963.

Mr Younger wrote: “The Stasi told you all you needed to know about the East German regime. SIS, and our sister services, GCHQ and MI5, tell you a lot about modern Britain.

“Despite bridling at the implication of a moral equivalence between us and our opponents that runs through John le Carré’s novels, I’ll take the quiet courage and integrity of George Smiley over the brash antics of 007, any day.”

In le Carré’s novels, Smiley seeks to track down a Soviet mole at the top of Britain’s secret service and battles with Soviet spy master Karla, who is sleeping with Smiley’s wife.

Smiley makes a brief return at the end of le Carré’s most recent novel, A Legacy of Spies, but he is outraged at the state of modern Britain when lawyers dredge up one of his Cold War battles.

Mr Younger, also a career spy who joined the Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI6, said that, though Britain’s intelligence services were not mavericks, they sometimes broke rules – but not laws.

“We do things in defence of national security that would not be justified in pursuit of private interest,” said Mr Younger, who became chief of MI6 in 2014. “But only when they are judged by ministers to be necessary and proportionate. We break the rules, certainly; we do not break the law,” he said. “It is creativity, innovation and sheer guile that give us the edge.”

Last year, Mr Younger took another pop at Ian Fleming’s creation when he said Bond would be unlikely to secure a job in the real-life MI6. In a rare speech made at the intelligence service’s headquarters he said, “were Bond to apply to join MI6 now, he would have to change his ways.”

Earlier this year, Mr Younger said MI6 wanted to move away from stereotypes amid concerns that good candidates were being put off from applying.