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<\/p>\nReds\u00a0not just under the bed but also in Westminster\u2019s corridors, canteens and, for all we know, in the Commons hair salon? MPs did not react calmly.<\/p>\n
\u2018We are in the front line of this!\u2019 cried Tim Loughton (Con, East Worthing & Shoreham), hopping up and down while he affixed twigs of south-coast privet hedge to the webbing of his tin helmet.<\/p>\n
Backbenchers percolated like hookah pipes about a threat to \u2018freedom of expression and the beliefs that undermine our values\u2019. There was talk of the need for \u2018constant vigilance\u2019 and for rooting out \u2018sabotage and espionage\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Deter, detect, disrupt,\u2019 said the deputy prime minister, Oliver \u2018Olive\u2019 Dowden, making a Commons statement about the great (alleged)\u00a0China spy crisis. What a time of it the MPs had. Beijing was maybe spying on them? Yesssss. At last someone seemed to think they mattered.<\/p>\n
Damp as dim sum dumplings, Dowding. Chinese officials must think all that hand-flapping and Larry Grayson eye-rolling is a cunning front. One doesn\u2019t like to tell them he really is that wet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Dowden boasted that he had banned Chinese TikTok from government mobiles and had reduced our vulnerability to sinister surveillance ruses. Yet he would not describe China as a \u2018threat\u2019. Instead it was \u2018a systemic challenge\u2019. My school reports used to employ that phrase, too.<\/p>\n
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\u2018Deter, detect, disrupt,\u2019 said the deputy prime minister, Oliver \u2018Olive\u2019 Dowden, making a Commons statement about the great (alleged) China spy crisis<\/p>\n
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Mr Dowden\u00a0would not describe China as a \u2018threat\u2019. Instead it was \u2018a systemic challenge\u2019. Pictured:\u00a0China’s President Xi Jinping<\/p>\n
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\u2018We are in the front line of this!\u2019 cried Tim Loughton (pictured), hopping up and down while he affixed twigs of south-coast privet hedge to the webbing of his tin helmet<\/p>\n
A row of ministers on the front bench nodded gravely. Tom Tugendhat, security minister, was among them, Buddha in a bate. Yet Mr Tugendhat still occasionally flashed his eyebrows at acquaintances. He is an incorrigible networker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The claim here was that a foreign superpower had gone to elaborate lengths to sidle up to him. But the traffic normally steams in the other direction. It can be a job to escape schmoozer Tom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Same with Alicia Kearns, head of the foreign affairs select committee and another of those MPs allegedly targeted by President Xi\u2019s operatives. Mistress Kearns is the foghorn of Rutland. If Agent Pinyin tried eavesdropping on her, he must now have punctured eardrums. Her bawling baritone would fry the wiring of any electronic bug.<\/p>\n
Talking of which, a small blue tube had been left on the bench behind the ministers. It resembled an asthma inhaler but you can never be too sure. Such was the frenzy, I\u2019m surprised it wasn\u2019t taken away by anti-terrorism police and blown up as a suspected \u2018device\u2019.<\/p>\n
Speaker Hoyle gave a warning about the \u2018ongoing sensitive investigation\u2019. Liz Truss (Con, SW Norfolk), rare as a bearcat, turned up to say China was dangerous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More dangerous than her? Labour\u2019s Barry Gardiner, who pocketed half a million pounds from a controversial Chinese woman, began a question mainly about himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Speaker told him to cork it. Mr Gardiner was heckled by Tories including Loughton. Minutes later Gardiner popped up in a doorway at the back of the Tory benches and gave Loughton a piece of his mind. Cross as chopsticks.<\/p>\n
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Same with Alicia Kearns, (pictured) head of the foreign affairs select committee and another of those MPs allegedly targeted by President Xi\u2019s operatives. Mistress Kearns is the foghorn of Rutland. If Agent Pinyin tried eavesdropping on her, he must now have punctured eardrums. Her bawling baritone would fry the wiring of any electronic bug<\/p>\n
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More dangerous than her? Labour\u2019s Barry Gardiner, (pictured) who pocketed half a million pounds from a controversial Chinese woman, began a question mainly about himself. The Speaker told him to cork it<\/p>\n
Bob Seely (Con, Isle of Wight), always cheery, predicted war in the Pacific in four years. Marie Rimmer (Lab, St Helens S) squawked that \u2018China is infiltrating our academia\u2019, which may be more than she ever managed. \u2018We\u2019re playing cricket while they\u2019re got the machetes out,\u2019 added the sage of St Helens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Christine Jardine (Lib Dem, Edinburgh W) claimed one of her outdoor speeches had been filmed by a Chinese drone. Some poor soul in a Shanghai warehouse presumably later had to listen to it. They never show you such things in the James Bond films.<\/p>\n
If Beijing wants to waste money snooping on MPs, why stop them? Not being terribly hot on democracy, communists think Parliament is where the decisions are taken. Ha! As for sanctioning Worthing\u2019s Loughton, is it the plot of a mistaken-identity farce?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The worst that can be said of Loughton is that he walks with a waddle and is a mite too fond of jelly babies. But if you said \u2018backhander\u2019 to him he would think it was a reference to his grass tennis.<\/p>\n