Ordinary UK citizens need to watch out for online contact with Chinese spies, the defence minister has said, after MI5 issued an espionage alert to parliament. Luke Pollard said a warning given to parliamentarians on Tuesday that China was attempting to recruit individuals with access to sensitive information should also be heeded by the public at large. Security services took the unusual step of advising MPs, Lords and their staff to be alert to contact from spies, revealing two LinkedIn accounts that had been used to try to recruit those…
Tag: House of Lords
MI5 issues alert to MPs and peers over Chinese espionage
MI5 has issued an espionage alert to MPs and peers warning that two people linked to the Chinese intelligence service are actively seeking to recruit parliamentarians. The two, who operate as headhunters on the LinkedIn professional networking website aiming to obtain “non-public and insider insights”, MI5 said, are also targeting economists, thinktank staff and civil servants for their access to politicians. The spy agency sent its warning about the two to Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the Commons, and his Lords equivalent, Lord McFall, on Tuesday morning, both of whom…
The Guardian view on the digital pound: an impetuous idea with a risky momentum of its own | Editorial
Two years ago, the House of Lords looked into whether the Bank of England should issue digital pounds to be held in electronic wallets. Peers were unconvinced, asking if this wasn’t “a solution in search of a problem”. Last December, MPs on the Treasury select committee said the same thing. The government’s response, however, was to tell the public to prepare for a “Britcoin” to be in use by the end of the decade. Physical money has been around for thousands of years for good reason. Cash is convenient, reliable and…
Sunak branded ‘inaction man’ at PMQs as Starmer attacks record on schools, prisons and China – as it happened
From 19h ago Sunak branded ‘inaction man’ at PMQs as Starmer attacks his record on schools, prisons and China Here is the PA Media story on PMQs. Rishi Sunak has been branded “inaction man” by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, as the government grapples with crumbling schools, Chinese espionage, and a prisoner on the run. Starmer urged the prime minister to call a general election, as he accused the government of failing to heed warnings which led to a series of crises for ministers over the last week. But Sunak…
TikTok to be banned from UK parliamentary devices
Parliament is to ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok from “all parliamentary devices and the wider parliamentary network”, citing the need for cybersecurity. The move goes further than the ban last week of the app on government mobile phones and devices, covering the whole parliamentary network. That means that MPs and parliamentary staff who continue to have TikTok installed on personal devices will find the service blocked if they try to access it over parliamentary wifi. A parliament spokesperson said on Thursday: “Following the government’s decision to ban TikTok from…
No 10 signals Rishi Sunak no longer committed to blocking all new onshore windfarm developments – UK politics live
From 3h ago No 10 signals Sunak no longer committed to blocking all new onshore windfarm developments At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson signalled that Rishi Sunak is no longer trying to block new onshore windfarm developments. The spokesperson did not accept that Grant Shapps’ comments in interviews this morning showed that the government had already implemented a U-turn. He claimed that Shapps’ references to community consent were a description of rules that are in force now. And the spokesperson would not commit the government to accepting…
MI5 warning on lawyer ‘sends a clear message to China’s allies in UK’
The suggestion that a British Chinese solicitor has been allegedly working on behalf of China to influence UK politics adds further evidence of the bilateral relationship mutating from a “golden era” to an “ice age”. The latest development will clearly not help improve ties and, along with previous incidents, make the “China v the west” narrative increasingly look like an early cold war plot: suspected influence operations and – although not apparently the case here – alleged espionage as well as expulsion of personnel. On Thursday, the British political establishment…
MI5 accuses lawyer of trying to influence politicians on behalf of China
A security warning from MI5 has been circulated to MPs and peers accusing the lawyer Christine Lee of seeking to improperly influence parliamentarians on behalf of China’s ruling Communist party. The “interference alert” from the security service names and pictures Christine Ching Kui Lee as an individual who has allegedly “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party”. The notice added that the UFWD “is seeking to covertly interfere in UK politics through establishing links with established and aspiring…