Thank you! I'm glad there's someone else out there who realises that M was incompetent from just about start to finish. And the bit about Silver being captured would have worked if they'd called it something like 'Contingency G' and made him the sort of villain where even his plans had plans.

As for the killing the thugs with Silva there, my reading was that he needed Silva to have an unloaded gun in his hand and be looking the wrong way. Silva's meant to be about as good as Bond - and Bond wasn't at his best. So Bond needed a decent edge.