Another week, another immigration crisis. A powerful parliamentary committee has accused the Home Office – for this government and the last – of squandering billions of pounds on asylum accommodation and overseeing a ‘failed, chaotic and expensive’ system. The report came days after the barely believable revelation that the convicted sex offender whose case sparked protests at the Bell hotel in Epping was accidentally let out of prison on Friday instead of being deported. He is now back in custody. Pippa Crerar and Eleni Courea discuss the ongoing firefighting at…
Tag: Espionage
Minister insists government will get asylum seekers out of hotels and expects progress ‘within weeks’ – UK politics live
From 4h ago Minister says government committed to getting all asylum seekers out of hotels after report says system ‘chaotic’ Good morning. When Jimmy Carter was US president, he gave a famous address in 1979 saying the country was suffering a crisis of confidence. It became known as the malaise speech, and now it is widely regarded as a mistake, because it was unduly pessimistic and because, in the presidential election the following year, voters turned to the much more upbeat Ronald Reagaan. Yesterday Wes Streeting, the health secretary, had…
‘Super Dom’ Cummings cunningly waits five years to reveal national security lapses | John Crace
And … relax. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Super Dom! At a time of heightened worries about national security, who better than Dominic Cummings to shine a light on the murky world of spying? The man who turned a drive to Barnard Castle into an advert for SpecSavers. The man who gave us Brexit. Which one of us didn’t vote for a 4% hit to GDP? The man who gave us Boris Johnson. Truly, Dom has enriched us all over the past 10 years. Here’s…
‘You’re in spy territory’: how two UK nationals got tangled in a Chinese espionage row
For Christopher Cash it was а job he adored. The young parliamentary researcher, then in his late 20s, was a China specialist working successively for two influential backbenchers, Tom Tugendhat and Alicia Kearns. He had a parliamentary pass and was plugged into Westminster’s gossip network during 2022, a year of Conservative turmoil in Westminster, three prime ministers and future policy uncertainty. At the same time, Cash was in close contact with a friend, Christopher Berry, a teacher based in Hangzhou, eastern China, where the Britons had first met five years…
King Charles ‘considering stripping Prince Andrew of Duke of York title’
King Charles is considering stripping Prince Andrew of his title of Duke of York after a string of allegations, the Guardian understands. Buckingham Palace has reportedly reached “a tipping point” over headlines about Andrew’s connections to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and to a senior Chinese Communist party official suspected to be at the heart of the recent collapsed China spy case. The Guardian understands that the Prince of Wales is keen for his uncle to be stripped of his titles before he inherits the throne, and that the…
‘A high-level operator’: Cai Qi’s rapid rise to become Xi Jinping’s right-hand man
In a world of identikit bureaucrats, Cai Qi, the man described as Xi Jinping’s top lieutenant and recently revealed as the suspected ringleader of an alleged Westminster Chinese spy ring, stands out. As the fifth-ranking member on the standing committee of the Chinese Communist party’s (CCP) ruling politburo, Cai is one of the most powerful people in China. But his importance outstrips even his senior title, because as the Chinese leader’s de facto chief of staff, he is also effectively the gatekeeper and right-hand man to Xi himself. Unlike other…
Head of CPS faces cross-party pressure to explain China spy trial collapse
The director of public prosecutions has come under intense cross-party pressure to explain why the China spy trial collapsed as MI5 expressed frustration at the decision and MPs launched a series of inquiries into how it was taken. The chairs of the home affairs, foreign affairs, justice and national security committees wrote together to Stephen Parkinson, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), on Thursday calling on him to give “a fuller explanation for the dropping of charges”. They asked Parkinson “what steps did you take to make ministers…
The Guardian view on UK national security: a case of state failure | Editorial
The China spying row has revealed disturbing weaknesses in the processes of the UK state. It cannot be in the national interest for a case involving national security to get so close to the courts and then for it to be abandoned in what remain mysterious circumstances. Public confidence, as well as security itself, are inevitably placed at risk. But this genuinely important issue now risks being blanketed by the fog of the party-political battle at Westminster. For the third time this week, MPs spent Thursday trading accusations about whether the Conservatives or Labour are more…
MI5 chief ‘frustrated’ at failure to put men accused of spying for China on trial
The MI5 director general, Ken McCallum, has acknowledged his frustration at the failure to put on trial two Britons who had been accused of spying for China, in an apparent rebuke to prosecutors who dropped the high-profile case last month. The domestic spy chief insisted he would “never back off” from confronting threats from Beijing, which he said posed a national security threat “every day”, although the wider UK-China relationship was a matter for the government. A China-related spy plot was disrupted “in the last week”, he said, though it…
MPs to hold inquiry into collapsed China spy case after No 10 publishes key evidence
The director of public prosecutions should explain why he felt he could not proceed with the trial of two men accused of spying for China, a government minister has said after No 10 published key evidence in an attempt to draw a line under the row. Stephen Kinnock said the government was “deeply disappointed that the prosecution didn’t go ahead” and that Stephen Parkinson was “the best person to explain” why the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) felt the government’s evidence did not meet the bar. Kinnock’s comments, which were echoed…