Imagine if a Chinese “consultancy" showed interest in hiring your services even though you were merely an economics teacher with no obvious special talent or position of influence. But you did have a friend whose job gave him access to important people and their equally important discussions. And that Chinese organisation then asked you to garner “insider" information from that friend, presumably for more than just a handshake. Would no alarm bells be set off?

After all, if it was all innocent and above board—“nothing secret or confidential" about it—would you not wonder why then the Chinese company doesn’t simply ask your friend instead of deciding to use a go-between? And if the information is not very crucial anyway, would you not be curious to know why the Chinese even bothered to find out who your friend was and what access his job gave him? But clearly Christopher Berry had no such niggles; nor did Christopher Cash.

The spy case against both those British men—one a teacher and the other a parliamentary committee researcher—fell through at the last minute this month because, again inexplicably, the Keir Starmer government found some procedural loophole: that China had not been officially called a “threat". It was like claiming that a large animal with pillar feet, tusks, a long trunk and flappy ears could not be called an elephant because its trumpeting sound could not be identified.

Britain’s reluctance to openly take on China should not surprise anyone given its current dire economic situation and the Labour government’s internal crises. So even........

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