George Smiley would not have expressed an opinion on the Sussexes and he would have been right
Many years ago, on leaving university, I was asked to go to a windowless office in the Mall to see if I might be interested in becoming an agent of the British secret service. Over a series of interviews, it became clear that I was not cut out to be George Smiley, let alone James Bond. A single bit of wisdom that I picked up in that process has never left me, though. At one point, the interviewer set out the hypothetical details of a complex conflict in a distant corner of the world in which I was theoretically stationed.
What steps would I take to advise the desk in London of how to respond to this crisis? I set out a few embarrassing platitudes about gathering information from all sides, before coming to a firm opinion and a clear course of action. When I’d finished, my interviewer leaned back in his chair.
