Chairman, Ministers.
Today I've repeatedly heard how
irrelevant my department has become.
Why do we need agents? The Double-O section?
Isn't it all rather quaint?
Well, I suppose I see a different world than you do.
And the truth is that what I see frightens me.
I'm frightened because our enemies are no longer known to us.
They do not exist on a map.
They're not nations. They are individuals.
Look around you. Who do you fear?
Can you see a face? A uniform? A flag? No.
Our world is not more transparent now.
It's more opaque.
It's in the shadows.
That's where we must do battle.
So, before you declare us irrelevant, ask yourselves,
how safe do you feel?
I've just one more thing to say.
My late husband was a great lover of poetry.
And, um. . .
I suppose some of it sunk in, despite my best intentions.
And here today I remember this, I think from Tennyson:
"We are not now that strength,
"which in old days Moved earth and heaven;
"That which we are, we are;
"One equal temper of heroic hearts,
"Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
"To strive, to seek,
"to find and not to yield."