I was hacked by the Chinese a few years ago. Security at News UK, where I was employed on the Sunday Times, told around 20 journalists that our emails had been compromised. An agency of the Chinese state was searching for information on our coverage of Chinese issues, including Beijing’s crushing of Hong Kong and the decision to sanction members of parliament. To be honest, I’d have been pretty offended if I hadn’t been on the list.

Frankly, if the Chinese want to know what I know, they can take out a subscription to The Spectator, just as they could have bought a copy of the Sunday Times. But this is what you expect from the Chinese, isn’t it? The same regime that put a honey trap on one of Gordon Brown’s advisers and stole his phone on a prime ministerial trip to Shanghai a few years ago.

Contempt for the media is ultimately contempt for the public’s right to know

Contempt for the media is ultimately contempt for the public’s right to know

Or the Russians, who handed out power packs and dongles riddled with spyware at summits to the press and Downing Street staff in the hope that anyone was stupid enough to plug it into their computer. On one such trip, everyone in No. 10 duly handed this kit to security, except a former director of communications, who had merrily given it to his kids to use in his home computer.

Or Qatari intelligence, who were so ham-fisted when I covered the 2003 Iraq War for Central Command in Doha that you could hear clicks and voices on the line when I phoned the Express newsdesk each day.

So contempt for the media is what you associate with autocratic regimes.........

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