First it emerged that two people — one a parliamentary researcher — had been arrested as potential secret agents for China.

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Then it was revealed that MI5 had stepped in to stop Chinese agents standing as MPs.

It is a crazy story.

Straight out of the Cold War.

But it should be a reminder that we are in a very new kind of conflict with the powers in Beijing.

Some people seem to find it easy to shrug off stories like this.

There are those who are already trying to do so.

They say that everybody spies on everybody.

And that everybody knows that.

But these latest alleged Chinese efforts are on a different level.

Because it’s claimed that MPs who were already critical of the Chinese Communist Party may have been targeted.

Greedy companies

To actually send people into Parliament to gather information on anyone who is critical of the CCP would be another level of seriousness.

That is not the behaviour of an ally or a rival, but of an enemy.

For years the Chinese have been doing espionage operations on British companies.

We have allowed decades of intellectual and other property theft on an industrial scale.

There are plenty of British companies operating in China that have been raided for information stolen by the Chinese.

For the two decades since it joined the World Trade Organisation, this is how China advanced.

By unfair advantage.

It persuaded greedy foreign companies such as Apple to outsource their labour to China.

In fact, until recently, China was the only power likely to overtake America as the world’s dominant economy.

But now the country is in trouble.

In recent weeks its economy has finally started to show its serious and deep flaws.

Its housing market is in a mess.

For a long time, cheap debt fuelled a bubble in the property sector.

It was keeping the whole economy afloat.

But that bubble has finally started to burst, and with it the whole Chinese economy is suddenly in peril.

One result of this is that the regime is resorting to weird distraction tactics.

Perhaps it is hoping that its own people won’t notice the mess the regime has made of the economy.

This week the Communists proposed a new law which would allow the authorities to fine and arrest people for wearing clothes that “hurt the nation’s feelings”.

The National People’s Congress standing committee announced that clothes which were “detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese nation” could be outlawed.

This follows years of broadcast regulations on “effeminate styles” of clothing and also a crackdown on tattoos.

Why would they do this at such a time? Because they don’t know what else to do.

The whole reason that the CCP remains in power is that it has managed to oversee a rise in living standards while keeping its iron grip on the freedoms of the Chinese people.

It seems that you can be a totalitarian country quite successfully so long as people’s living standards rise.

But if they fall?

Well, then everything becomes far less certain.

And that is what the CCP will now be fearing.

If the public at home start to suffer a fall in living standards, the likelihood that there will be disturbances to follow starts to grow.

We all know — and remember from Tiananmen Square — what the CCP are willing to do when they see their grip on power threatened.

There is literally nothing they will not do.

They are willing to crush dissent.

They are willing to round people up and put people in concentration camps — as they have done with the Uyghur people.

And they are willing to make internal critics disappear.

Now they are even doing so with people who are critical of the authorities in Hong Kong.

There is nothing they won’t do to remain in power.

And it is in that light that we should see this week’s news from Westminster.

Getting desperate

As Beijing gets into trouble at home, it is even more likely to start to act up abroad.

As they face domestic troubles, expect them to become more militarily aggressive overseas.

They will want to project a power that is waning and to boast to their people at home — as well as foreign powers — that they aren’t going anywhere.

But still none of this should be taken lying down.

The CCP has got away with so much in recent years.

Not least in giving the world a virus that it didn’t tell us about, which wrecked every economy, including ours, and which they continue to cover up to this day.

Now they are trying to send people in to the heart of government to spy on us.

This is certainly not the action of an ally.

But it is the action of a regime that is getting desperate.

Hi Vlad! I’m a friend with no benefits

KIM Jong Un was sent to Siberia.

Actually, the hereditary dictator of North Korea chose to go there this week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Some people see this as a dark and disturbing development.

I don’t agree. I see it as Vlad No-Mates becoming seriously desperate.

Having been to North Korea, I can tell you that they have absolutely nothing to give Russia.

Nothing.

The country doesn’t work.

They don’t have the most basic foodstuffs.

They can’t keep the electricity on.

Their only active market is the black market.

And their military consists of belching old Soviet tanks that stagger down the highways for the big military parades.

If Putin wants those old things back, then he really is desperate.

Reaching out to North Korea isn’t a sign of strength.

It’s like calling your most skint friend over, asking them for money and pretending it’s a deal.

Silence is a bit rich

RICHARD Ayoade is the latest celebrity to suffer a cancellation bid.

What has been the comedian’s crime?

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Simply providing a cover jacket endorsement to Graham Linehan’s hilarious and moving new memoir, Tough Crowd: How I Made And Lost A Career In Comedy.

Linehan is the creator of such loved shows as Father Ted.

He is a comic genius.

But in recent years he became concerned by the stampede of demands being made by trans extremists.

Specifically, he became concerned over attempts to “transition” kids just because they had questions about their identity.

As most kids do at some point.

For voicing his concerns, Linehan got mobbed online and off – and was made effectively unemployable.

All those “brave” people in comedy who pat themselves on their own backs for their bravery in hitting easy targets ran a million miles from him.

Just last month, a venue at the Edinburgh Fringe – of all places – cancelled a stand-up show in which Linehan was due to appear.

And here was me thinking that the Fringe was meant to be a place where daring and interesting things happened.

Not any more.

It has become as boring and well-behaved as everybody else when it comes to the trans issue.

What has happened to Linehan is a real scandal.

But good luck to the people who think they will take out Ayoade and others just for saying something nice about him.

Time is vindicating. It will vindicate Linehan.

And it will have a lot to say about the people who kept silent while kids were misled, abused and worse.

Still time, Harry

PRINCE HARRY´S Invictus Games have been a great success again.

I’m pleased for him and everyone involved.

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But it is also a poignant reminder of what could have been.

Because Harry could have done so much good.

There’s nothing wrong with being the “spare”.

The late Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, spent his whole life playing second fiddle.

And he managed it not just with grace and style, but while doing a huge amount of good along the way.

Not least with his awards scheme.

Harry didn’t have to choose a life in California Mansions.

The Invictus Games are a reminder of the good that can be done – and which he could do yet.