– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

None of the intelligence officers I've ever met...

Sorry about this, by the way.

None of you look like the James Bond type.

They're not superhuman.

They're just ordinary people conducting a job

that in this case keeps the UK safe.

James Bond does some incredible stuff.

I don't think we can compete.

I would say that we don't have any real James Bonds

in our organisation, sadly.

There are three kinds

of intelligence agency in the United Kingdom.

MI6 is mostly concerned with threats from abroad,

MI5 is mostly concerned with domestic threats,

and GCHQ does a lot of intelligence-gathering

around signals intelligence, telecommunications

and satellite surveillance.

The intelligence services

have faced numerous threats over the years,

from the Second World War

when it's gathering intelligence on Nazi Germany,

the Cold War, when we return yet again

to monitoring the Soviet threat.

Terrorism, the rise of China. Russia.

Historically, recruitment was very opaque.

There is the traditional idea of a tap on the shoulder

at university, usually Oxbridge.

During the Second World War, women proved their mettle

in terms of being excellent spies.

But in the aftermath of the Second World War,

the agencies went back to recruiting mostly male,

mostly people from a particular elite background.

It wasn't until 1973 that the marriage ban was lifted.

Before then, women had to leave the Secret Intelligence Service

if they wanted to marry.

Well, recently, the chief of MI6, SIS, Richard Moore,

actually issued an apology on behalf of his service

on the attitudes towards LGBTQ+ individuals within his organisation

for the preceding 40, 50 years.

My name's Jo and I work for GCHQ,

the Government Communications Headquarters.

Diversity is really, really important to us at GCHQ.

Our work involves tackling

some really kind of complex, knotty problems,

and in order to be successful in our mission,

we need a real mix of minds.

So we need people from different backgrounds

who've had different life experiences

to come and work with us.

Today, recruitment's actually changed quite a lot.

You can go on MI5 or MI6's website

and apply direct to the intelligence agencies.

I think definitely the tap on the shoulder

is not something that happens these days.

It's really very different.

I work as an intelligence analyst in GCHQ.

I've been working there for five years.

I heard about this role on a recruitment website.

I wasn't sure if it was... What it was really about

because the description was quite limited.

But I knew I always wanted to work in the public sector,

so I thought I'd give it a go and just applied.

There isn't one type of person

that the intelligence agencies are looking for.

You couldn't have the kind of cold-hearted, misogynistic loner

that James Bond represents in the intelligence agencies today

because they wouldn't be able to function as part of a team.

The one overriding characteristic

you need as an intelligence officer is discretion.

You can't have people blabbing about what they do in the pub

or to their friends, because that is a security threat.

We're really looking for people who can work as a team.

We want people who are thoughtful, are kind and considerate,

care about the people they're working with

and also care about doing the right thing and keeping the country safe.

I think being patient is really important for our job.

Sometimes it's really difficult to have all the answers.

I think it's really important as well

to be a bit creative with your solutions.

Sometimes we have a lot of data, so it's good to be able to

think of unique and creative ways to look at that data.

Some of the obstacles for us are the stereotypes

that are out there in the James Bond films and other fiction

around what spies are like

and what people working for our organisations look like

and how they behave.

I was definitely aware of the spy stereotypes

in terms of UK government security

and I was a bit nervous of that. I think I was more nervous

of particularly not fitting in,

maybe, being a female from a certain background,

sticking out like a sore thumb.

Well, they may not be as handsome as Daniel Craig

or Sean Connery, but still the majority of people

who are recruited into the agencies are male.

The agencies are varied in terms of

how they've been able to put diversity into practice.

MI5, the security service, was the first one to have a female lead.

GCHQ has also now had a female lead appointed to the agency.

MI6, as of 2023, hasn't yet had a female leader

of the organisation.

In 2018, The UK's Intelligence and Security Committee

released a report that looked at

involvement from black, ethnic minority background groups

within the intelligence community. Around 7%, 8% of the workforce

come from these under-represented groups,

and in all areas there was much room for improvement.

We talk about diversity as being mission critical in GQ,

and that's because we have to solve

some really difficult, complex problems.

And in order to do that,

we need people who think differently from one another.

We need people who will come at problems from a different angle.

The intelligence agencies are recruiting

from diverse backgrounds because operationally it's important.

You need an intelligence officer who might understand the culture

and the environment they're going to be operating in.

I definitely feel like I really fit in.

It's a really inclusive environment

and it's really friendly and supportive.

So I would genuinely say to anyone who is thinking about it

to definitely give it a go.