For your eyes only

Why the UK’s Secret Services didn’t get Blofeld wrong — and why we weren't the only ones if, er, we did.

In response to the recent request from the Minister, this memo outlines the historical position of this Department towards a certain Ernst Stavros Blofeld, head of SPECTRE, and an Organised Crime Group boss of some renown. A narcissistic megalomaniac, aficionado of the Nehru jacket and owner of a bad-tempered cat, Blofeld has led SPECTRE for many years and his ambitions have only grown over that time.

By way of background, Blofeld is currently threatening to destroy the West’s agricultural industries using a group of specially-trained, attractive young women armed with lethal viruses secreted in perfume atomizers. Having been brainwashed by SPECTRE to undertake their grim duties, the whereabouts of these so-called ‘Angels of Death’ is presently unknown and an attack is feared to be imminent. In the light of these recent developments, this memo will suggest a possible means of dealing with the renewed threat that Blofeld presents on the world stage.

Firstly, however, this department would like it to be known that, despite what one might read in the press, there was no historical indication that Blofeld was a ‘wrongun’, as elements in the same newspapers now describe him!

Yes, there was that unpleasantness with the nuclear missiles, which SPECTRE stole, hid in the Caribbean sea and threatened to fire on the United States. But that was an awfully long time ago, and the finest minds in the department at the time didn't see this isolated act as a precursor to an ongoing threat to humanity.

In any case, if we did get him wrong — and it’s a big ‘if’ — we weren’t alone! Our colleagues in the US and Europe also failed to identify the threat he now presents. The Germans have come to rely on gas supplied by companies ultimately answering to Blofeld, while a certain section of American politics has grown fascinated by his ‘strongman’ routine.

Obviously, common or garden politics is not the interest of this Department, but a neutral observer might conclude that successive British governments turned a blind eye to the ‘baldie with a bad reputation’ in order to attract Blofeld’s associates to London — not only to burnish the city’s reputation as the home of high-end legal services and property investment opportunities but provide a boost to its world-class independent schooling.

Indeed, one approach that Ministers might consider adopting if asked about the UK’s historical stance on Blofeld is that it was firmly believed that doing business with SPECTRE would help bring the organisation into the civilized fold that is western liberal democracy. While this may seem a tad unrealistic now, it should be remembered that, following a number of failed missions in the early 1990s, SPECTRE had lost much of its bite, and accommodation seemed the wisest and most profitable means of dealing with the organisation and its leader, Blofeld.

That said, hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing, and few of us here at the department could have predicted that SPECTRE would regroup and regain its former strength from a private health facility atop a Swiss mountain, united behind a fiendish plan to mobilise the Angels of Death and their deadly cargo of crop and livestock-killing poisons. Rest assured, though, for while his femmes fatales may have flown their icy nest, the Service’s finest, the famous double-o section, is on the case!

We have every confidence that these efforts to find Blofeld’s operatives will be successful, and in an attempt to get ahead of the situation, may we be so bold as to consider the next stages in our dealings with the man? After all, it’s this Department’s job to play three-dimensional chess, as well as identify existential threats to the planet, and the UK in particular!

To whit… one current line of thinking at the Department suggests Blofeld could be talked down from his current fixation on destroying planet Earth. Popular readings of the man suggest he is irrational, power-crazed and hell-bent on the planet’s destruction. But while good skiers, his henchmen are under-equipped and his Angels are flighty and temperamental. If a moment’s indulgence may be permitted, are we certain he can’t be dissuaded from enacting his plans? If so, we must consider what ‘success’ would look like from his perspective.

To this end, a seemingly endless permutation of endgame scenarios has been undertaken by this department and it has become apparent that the successful containment of SPECTRE rests on Blofeld not being seen to ‘lose face.’

He may be a vain and cruel man with no fear of using weapons of mass destruction, but it is nonetheless clear that a satisfactory resolution to the current situation must involve Blofeld not losing credibility and respect within SPECTRE itself. His turtleneck-clad brigades must not question his authority, for a potentially more dangerous individual might take his place at the head of the table. And we can't have that.

No, instead of mobilising ever more agency resources and readying a doomsday nuclear military response, a range of measures designed to mollify Blofeld could be equally effective and would help avoid all-out war. These include, but are not limited to:

• Acknowledging Blofeld’s claim to the ancestral title of Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp. He has the ears, apparently!
• Recognising Blofeld’s alpine base as a state in its own right, from where he could practice as much genocide as he wishes by poisoning as many of his own people as he likes.
• Giving Blofeld a seat at the United Nations. Controversial, I know, but our sources suggest he loves nothing more than a well-upholstered seat and acres of deskspace festooned with plenty of buttons to press.
• Continuing to trade with the various parts of SPECTRE in the bid that renewed economic activity will remind them of the benefits of legal enterprise and the dignity of hard work!
• Allowing Blofeld to operate and have control over his own social media networks (handily, this also removes any responsibility for Big Tech to moderate his posts!)

I trust these suggestions are helpful and would remind Ministers that the Department continues to have the best interests of the UK at its heart! Do let us know if we can be of any further help.