Forbidden City in Beijing, China. (Photo by Yanshan Zhang/Getty Images)

The government has made clear it thinks Beijing’s cash is more important that our own laws, there is another choice, says Tom Tugendhat

The collapse of the China spy case says more about Britain than China, and more about our economy than any Treasury forecast. The government has made clear they think we have no choice: Beijing’s cash is more important than our laws.

That’s a generational failure based on decades of failing to understand risk, and it starts with the economy.

The UK’s insurance and pension funds hold more than £6 trillion in investable wealth. That’s huge and more than double our national debt, enough to put energy behind the ideas that will change the world – and make us rich. But the money isn’t in the minds of our entrepreneurs, instead it is stored in bonds. This is the illusion of prudence.

Our regulators have congratulated themselves in presiding over a generation of stagnation by following a model that prizes the management of risk over the pursuit of growth, we have confused volatility with danger and safety with success.

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