That’s why, arguably, it’s a mistake to reveal too much of Bond’s back story (such as his family’s Scottish ancestral seat, which Javier Bardem spent the last reel of Skyfall blowing up), since to detail Bond’s biography is to risk alienating his bloke demographic. The French have wine, the Germans have cars, we have Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice breeches or knock-off Bond schmutter. MI6, at its worst, was less effective than Rowan Atkinson’s Johnny English or even Barbara Windsor’s Daphne Honeybutt.

Hence the Millwall scarf dangling from Eggsy’s mirror; hence the rubbish motor he nicks; hence the convincingly charmless boozer with its chairless acres of brawling spaces fit for nothing but geezerish punch-up homages to Guy Ritchie films of yore. Horowitz, currently retooling Bond for a new novel, knows what the world demands from the British spy: that he must be five parts maverick with – at most – a twist of toff. The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice. Philby may have been one of the most effective traitors in 20th-century British history (“I wouldn’t have trusted him with my cat for the weekend,” remarked Le Carré, whose career in MI5 and MI6 was ended by Philby’s leaks, but he was Westminster and Cambridge – and knew, no doubt, what it took for a martini to be comme il faut. TOFFS RETRO is a collection of bespoke classic sportswear, created by our designers with inspiration from our personal favourite football shirts and vintage sports clothing designs.

Now if Eggsy, played by Taron Egerton, can survive the training course in which he is pitted against a bunch of stuckup, over-entitled Oxbridge ponces (plus the token bit of hottie posh whose snobby froideur melts at our hero’s bit-of-rough charms), then he can become a Kingsman. As with all of our products, these vintage sportswear products are handmade at our factory in Gateshead to the very highest standard! The reality is different: Macintyre points out that it was MI5, overwhelmingly staffed by ex-coppers, who ensured that Philby sloped off to his Kremlin paymasters in 1963, despite the compunctions of his class allies in MI6. For those fans who are going for pure style, we present TOFFS RETRO , our unique vintage sportswear range!

Steed and Bond went to Eton, albeit briefly; Smiley went to a minor public school before becoming an Oxford don; even Austin Powers attended boarding school (St Trinian’s? For all the explosions and three-figure body count, Kingsman is heritage drama: it knows the history of the Brit spy genre back to front; plus it knows how to deploy a version of the British class system with an eye to maximising foreign sales, just like Julian Fellowes did when concocting Gosford Park and Downton Abbey. The espionage novelist wanted to know why Elliott and his MI6 colleagues let the British spymaster and KGB lackey Kim Philby escape to Moscow and never dragged him back to London to be punished for passing on secrets to the Soviets. Premium Digital includes access to our premier business column, Lex, as well as 15 curated newsletters covering key business themes with original, in-depth reporting.We believe that these high-quality shirts, polos, hoodies and jackets look just as good without club-specific embroidery or crests, simply because of their impressive detail and fashionable looks.