A recent report declared a lack of women in intelligence agencies so the powers that be have suggested the government look for new recruits on Mumsnet - after all, mums have all the necessary experience, writes Leona O'Neill
SO SPY chiefs are on the look out for a new breed of secret agent and have been told by government officials to look towards middle-aged mums due to the fact that they 'are emotionally intelligent' and super at building relationships. Forget James Bond, they want Jane Bond to step up to the plate.
The Intelligence and Security Committee - made up of senior Westminster MPs - last week declared that MI5, MI6 and GCHQ should start advertising on the Mumsnet website for future recruits.
After a report stated that only 19 per cent of women in the intelligence agencies were reaching senior grades and becoming intelligence officers, Labour MP Hazel Blears called for a real culture change in that sector. She said that more middle-aged female spies would make the UK a much safer place to live. And I suppose, when you take all our skills into consideration, us mums would indeed make the perfect spies.
Let's forget for a second that most mums wouldn't have the luxury of a 24-hour nanny so that they can leave little Tarquinn and Esmerelda at a moment's notice in the small hours of the night to chase foreign terrorist suspects across the world and that the only experience of weaponry they would have would be a sneaky go on a Nerf gun after the kids go to bed, and instead dream a little.
Here are a few reasons why mums would make the perfect spy material.
We see the micro details n Anyone who can make sense of primary six maths homework can surely analyse complicated satellite imagery. n Anyone who can find and eradicate head lice on a child's head can surely seek out the enemy on hi-tech infra-red equipment.
We do surveillance like bosses n Surveillance is part and parcel of our daily lives, whether it's checking computer histories, snooping on our kids' Facebook profiles, banning certain unsavoury YouTube videos or trying not to overhear mobile phone conversations about nights out or relationships.
If we could, some of us would microchip our children, put tracking devices on their mobile phones and doctor their cars so they couldn't drive over 30mph.
We know what we want. Also we know how to get it.
Bribery is something all mothers are adept at "If you do your homework all month without complaint, you can have that new over-priced and over-hyped PS4 game."
And also blackmail. "If you don't tidy your room, I'll tell your granny you dropped and broke her glasses and she'll never buy you sweets ever again."
We observe like actual observation machines
* Any mother who has taken a loose toddler into a large supermarket and not lost him has the perfect observation skills for being a top class spy.
* Mothers of young children have the ability to scan a room in seconds - a la The Terminator - for possible dangers.
* We're super tough.
We've been through childbirth.
We've survived six months of little to no sleep. We've come through toddler tantrums and teenage drama. We've first hand experience of all kinds of bodily fluids. Going undercover to gather evidence to jail a Columbian drugs gang is absolutely nothing to us.
Torture? Ha! We laugh in the face of your so-called torture!
* We have endured six months of extreme sleep deprivation. We have been woken every hour on the hour by cute little terrorists.
* We have endured constant and never ending questions on who would win a fight between a whale and a dolphin and why girls don't puke pink.
* We have been poked by stuff, injured our feet on lethal bits of Lego and we've sat through hours of Peppa Pig.
* There is nothing you can do to us that could possible scare us.