Politics

Liu Xiaoming - No Muslim concentration camps in Xinjiang Today's Sunday interviews took a heavier focus on foreign affairs than usual, with Andrew Marr counting not one, but two ambassadors among his guests. He began by speaking to Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador, and confronted him with aerial footage appearing to show restrained Uighur Muslims preparing to be transported to ‘re-education’ camps, alongside testimony that Uighur women were being forced to undergo sterilisation procedures. Liu denied that such human rights abuses were Chinese government policy and tried to brand the claims as fake: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1284771337970552832?

There has been an emotional response to the case of Shamima Begum, quite rightly. It is not clear to me that lawyers are better equipped than politicians to navigate such emotions, but sadly we live in an age which is increasingly demanding legal answers to political questions. What is perhaps surprising is that, with uncharacteristic vigour, our Court of Appeal have jumped headfirst into the maelstrom. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) – created to consider cases like these – found against Ms Begum in February, which seemed largely uncontroversial at the time.

The Black Lives Matter frenzy against statues may have passed its peak. The issue has been co-opted by the bureaucracies in government, Church, universities, etc. As their various committees study lists of allegedly offensive monuments, they should remember something which has hardly been mentioned: localism.  Most statues are erected not because of a general national sentiment, but because of the wishes of a particular community — a borough, parish, college, profession, business or regiment. They were not put up, like those colossal statues of Lenin in the former Eastern Bloc, by order of a remote tyranny. The reason that Edward Colston’s statue stayed up so long in Bristol was that many Bristolians admired his munificent legacy to the city.

There’s talk of reparations in the air. Lobbyists from around the world are demanding sin-payments from former colonial powers. Let me add my voice to the clamour on behalf of this island’s indigenous Celtic people. My family are from Llanelli in Carmarthenshire and I believe that my compatriots have an excellent case to make against the Roman empire. This is not an extinct claim – the money is still in play. Britain was invaded by Julius Caesar in 55 BC and his visit was followed up a century later by the Emperor Claudius and his mob. The Roman occupation, which involved the military subjection of the Celtic peoples, lasted for about four centuries.

Huawei’s 5G path is blocked. In a few months’ time, Huawei may no longer see the point of paying six-figure sums to Lord B and his attendant knights,’ I wrote in this space on 20 June. I underrated its ruthlessness. It took only a few weeks. Lord Browne, its UK chairman, is out. Sir Ken Olisa has followed.  How much longer for the arch-Remainers Sir Andrew Cahn, who thinks Huawei is ‘the John Lewis of China’, and the ex-CBI Sir Mike Rake, who joined as recently as April? All this could have been avoided if, before taking the six-figure salary, these gentlemen had asked: ‘Who ultimately controls this company’s destiny?’ The answer is the Chinese Communist party.

Normally Fridays are spent thinking about how to unwind from work. Today though Boris Johnson announced changes to government guidance to get the public back to work, and more specifically, their place of work. From 1 August, the guidance will be changed to give employers more discretion to decide whether their employees should keep working from home or head back to the office. Public transport guidance will be updated as well to encourage people to use it to travel to work – an overdue change, as the guidance has been at odds with other policies for weeks now, and only open for essential journeys despite pubs, restaurants and shops opening back up.

The numbers have seldom been better for Nicola Sturgeon. Ten months from the next Holyrood election, the SNP is polling 55 per cent on the constituency ballot and 50 per cent on the regional vote. Support for Scexit has swung into the majority. Almost three-quarters of Scots say she has handled the Covid-19 pandemic well, compared to just 21 per cent for Boris Johnson. Yet in terms of the record, Sturgeon’s response to coronavirus has been at least as impaired as that of Boris Johnson. The UK Government has been criticised for its lack of pandemic preparedness despite the findings of a 2017 simulation called Exercise Cygnus. However, the Scottish Government had its own review, conducted the previous year and codenamed Silver Swan, which heard warnings of PPE and staff shortages.