Bond hurting MI6 image

DEPLOYED on missions across the globe and surrounded by glamorous admirers, James Bond should be the ideal recruitment tool for Britain’s intelligence agencies.

But the icon gives a distorted impression of MI6’s work and may be hampering its drive to hire more minorities, Muslims and women, the service’s chief recruiter told BBC yesterday.

“I think sometimes we’re hindered by it, because I think it gives people a false impression of what working for the organisation is actually like,” said the official, whose identity was withheld for security reasons.

MI6 allowed BBC Radio One to conduct the first interviews inside the agency’s London headquarters as part of a recruitment push.

Many applicants need to forget about the Bond myth, the recruiter said. “We do not have a licence to kill; we do not carry Berettas,” he said. “That’s simply not true.”