The best way for real to reflect reel could well be a spy thriller, arguably. James Bond’s ‘M’ is now ‘C’, a woman, powerful and savvy enough to take on the world. And in a world where, increasingly, fact seems like fiction and fiction, fact, Britain has appointed a woman to its secret intelligence agency. Seldom have the two overlapped so effortlessly as when Blaise Metreweli was named as the first woman chief of Britain’s MI6.
Ms. Metreweli will be the 18th Chief of the MI6, coming in at a time when geopolitics is more in tune with a Mission Impossible world than the racy, but dated intrigue of the Cold War espionage that James Bond played amidst. Adversaries have changed, goalposts have shifted, and the tools of war constitute even more fancy technology than Bond’s most creative tech guy ‘Q’ could even fathom. Ironically enough, Ms. Metreweli is currently Director General ‘Q’ in MI6, responsible for technology and innovation. Earlier she was with the MI5, Britain secret service agency for domestic intelligence.
Ms. Metreweli, who will succeed Sir Richard Moore, will be referred to as ‘C’, as all chiefs of the MI6 are, going back to the initial used by the agency’s first head, Captain Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming.
