IF a Chinese bloke had been caught spying for the UK in Beijing, he’d currently be hung up by his toes in a cell, awaiting execution.
That’s how the Chinese sort things out. Nobody in Beijing would be worrying much if the UK is a threat or not.
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Bullet or lethal injection, Wu’s yer uncle.
Or maybe they would be pawed to death by an angry panda.
But it’s more often a bullet between the eyes.
Most countries take spying and espionage very seriously.
Indeed, ensuring we are safe from foreigners who might do us harm is the first duty of a government.
But clearly it is a duty that Sir Keir Starmer does not take remotely seriously.
Last week, two Brits were due to be tried for spying for the Chinese.
They were Christopher Cash, a parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, a researcher who works in China.
Both deny any wrongdoing.
But suddenly, at the last minute, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case.
It didn’t bother explaining why — one minute the trial was on, the next it was dead meat.
Industrial secrets
It now transpires that the CPS took advice from British government officials.
It is entirely possible that the UK’s National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, a good mate of Keir, was one of the officials involved.
Shortly after their meeting with the CPS, the decision was taken to drop the case.
Why? They apparently told the CPS China couldn’t be called a “threat” to the UK.
Instead, it was just a “geo-political challenge”.
And so the charges against Cash and Berry wouldn’t stick.
In a previous spying case it was decided that charges were relevant only if it involved “a country which represents, at the time of the offence, a threat to the national security of the UK”.
Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?
If China isn’t a threat to the UK, then who is?
The head of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, has reported that the Chinese have tried to entice 20,000 Brits to act as spies for them, against our interests.
Did nobody think to ask Sir Ken if he thought China was a threat? I suspect I know the answer that would have been forthcoming
He also claimed that 10,000 UK businesses were at threat from the Chinese trying to nick industrial secrets.
In addition, he said that MI5 had 2,000 current investigations into Chinese spying activity — and that a new case was opened on the Chinese — behaving very deviously indeed — every 12 hours.
Did nobody think to ask Sir Ken if he thought China was a threat?
I suspect I know the answer that would have been forthcoming.
Of course the country is a threat.
It is menacing other nations down in South East Asia.
It has a whole bunch of nukes pointed directly at the West.
It arrests dissidents who want western-style freedoms.
And it does everything it can to undermine the UK’s politics and industry.
Truth be told, anybody who is working secretly for a foreign country in the UK is a threat to this country.
Especially if they are working in the House of Commons.
This seems to me so obvious that it should not need stating.
If their secret outside income involves a vast load of Yuan, some fortune cookies and cans of bubble tea, then we should investigate very seriously.
The truth in this particular case, though, is particularly damning.
It seems almost certain that Whitehall officials intervened at the behest of the Government.
And that they did this so as not to p**s off the Chinese — because aside from being a threat to the UK, which China certainly is, we are going cap in hand begging for investment from them.
Other nations don’t have a problem with employing a dual approach.
Make no mistake, we may need to do business with the likes of China, much as we did once with Russia — but they ARE the enemy
They understand that while they all need to do trade with horrible totalitarian countries such as China, they also need to count their spoons, if you get my meaning — and at the slightest sign of devious behaviour, call them out.
The Chinese understand this too.
Yes, being caught with a bunch of spies in our Parliament may be embarrassing for a short while.
But it won’t be allowed to get in the way of China making more money.
It seems that our government was too frit to risk it.
Too scared that the Chinese might react nastily and pull investment.
Or decide not to invest in the future. We mustn’t offend the Chinese.
Strategies like this simply do not work — and the Chinese, just like their big mates the Russians, will continue to spy on our institutions and do everything they can to harm our state.
Enemy is laughing
Make no mistake, we may need to do business with the likes of China, much as we did once with Russia — but they ARE the enemy.
And currently an enemy that is laughing its head off.
The government officials involved will be coming before the House of Commons Joint Committee on National Security Strategy.
If it is discovered that Jonathan Powell did warn off the CPS from pursuing the cases against Cash and Berry, then Powell should resign or be sacked.
Unless, of course, Powell was simply doing the bidding of the Prime Minister or the then Foreign Secretary, the intellectual colossus who is David Lammy.
If that’s the case then THEY should resign.
One way or another, we cannot allow Chinese spies to run amok in this country of ours just because we want to trouser some more wonga down the line, through Chinese investment.
This is a truly important week for Starmer.
The Chinese spygate scandal is the most serious he has faced since taking office last July.
It could yet be the finish of the man.
Which won’t make me lose a terrific amount of sleep, I have to tell you.
THE Man Who Never Sweats is probably feeling a bit moist under the armpits right now.
It has been discovered that Prince Andrew was still sending chummy texts to disgraced paedo Jeffrey Epstein long after the royal said he was.
Andrew is alleged to have messaged him to say: “We are in this together.”
This happened 12 weeks after the point at which Andrew claimed, in that BBC interview, to have cut off all contact with the odious slimeball.
It’s high time King Charles took action and kicked Andrew out of his Royal Lodge home in Windsor Great Park.
I’M sure there must be some people on those pro-Palestinian marches who are not actually dyed-in-the-wool antisemites.
But if so, how do they react to a comrade saying that they “don’t give a f***” about the Jewish community?
Or the protesters in Glasgow who unfurled a banner praising the “martyrs” of Hamas for murdering about 1,200 Israeli civilians and taking 251 hostage on October 7, 2023?
Or the chants about killing the IDF?
Or the demands for Israel to cease to exist?
Or for a global intifada?
It is one thing to have a few doubts about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is altogether another to stand alongside rabid, Jew-hating jihadis, chanting their odious slogans.
Isn’t it time these fellow travellers had a Mitchell and Webb moment and asked themselves: “Hey . . . are we the BAD guys?”