Bill Carmichael: Meet Bond’s new nemesis...

That’s because, incredibly, the UK’s secret service is advertising for a health and safety manager – at a mere £60,000 a year – to make sure our spooks carry out their duties “as safely as possible”.

So, fresh from banning home-made cakes from the school fete in case someone gets poisoned and removing municipal hanging baskets in case they fall on someone’s head, Clipboard Man will now be demanding a risk assessment form be completed – in triplicate – before any espionage mission can be undertaken.

The advert for the job on the MI5 website is a comic masterpiece in itself.

To protect national security, applicants will be told nothing about where they will be working, who with, or with what technology.

The advert says: “We can’t show you the buildings.

“We can’t talk about the people you’ll work with.

“We can’t tell you much about the job.

“We can’t give you the exact locations.

“We can’t mention the kind of technology involved.”

Just one problem with this – how will potential applicants know if they are qualified for the post if they don’t know what the job entails? And once they are appointed will the successful candidate ever be told what they are supposed to do, or will they always be in the dark?

It is one thing mollycoddling primary schoolchildren, but when a country becomes so risk-averse that it sees fit to wrap its dashing and daring spies in cotton wool, you know you are in big trouble.

And I can’t help thinking there is a potential clash of cultures here, not least with the issue of firearms.

Clipboard Man: “What’s that?”

James Bond: “It is my trusty Walther PPK 7.65mm semi-automatic pistol.”

Clipboard Man: “Sorry, you can’t use that. It’s dangerous!”

James Bond: “Of course it’s bloody dangerous, that’s what it’s for.”

Clipboard Man: “Sorry mate. More than my job’s worth. You could kill someone with that.”

James Bond: “Erm... that’s what I’m paid to do.”

And what the health and safety manager will make of an Aston Martin DB5 with tyre-shredding spikes emerging from the hub caps is anyone’s guess.

If Clipboard Man gets his way, the next James Bond will be driving a nice little Vauxhall Astra – probably in beige.

Scanty reasoning

A FEMINIST campaign against so-called “lads’ mags” scored a significant victory this week when the Co-op bowed to pressure and ordered the publishers of Nuts, Zoo, Loaded and Front to place their magazines in opaque “modesty bags” to hide the covers.

The Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign says images of scantily-clad models treat women as dehumanised sex objects and promote harmful attitudes.

OK, but what about the half-dozen women’s magazines I spotted in my local newsagent featuring women in bikinis on the cover? Don’t they objectify women too? Inside you’ll find impossibly thin models airbrushed to within an inch of their lives. Don’t they promote harmful attitudes as well?

And what about the images of muscled, well-oiled hunks (usually David Beckham) advertising everything from perfume to underwear, or the rippling naked male torso on the cover of the gay magazine Attitude? Don’t they treat men as dehumanised sex objects too?

The whole campaign stinks of snobbery and double standards.