James Ball

In light of Russia’s abhorrent invasion of Ukraine, certain corners of the internet have become obsessed – yet again – with Russia’s supposed involvement in the 2016 Brexit referendum. The connections are always left necessarily tenuous: there is very little in the way of logical reasoning that could really connect the two. Plenty of pro-Brexit figures have been hawkish on Russia since long before the 2016 referendum. Plenty of liberal remainers have, intentionally or not, acted as apologists to Russian wrongdoing. There is nothing to suggest Brexit enhanced Russia’s ability to invade Ukraine, either. The EU is not Europe’s primary security alliance, Nato is.

The modern world has an unfortunate habit of making life difficult for those working to keep us safe. For the police, security services and others, so many inventions seem to be created just to make it more difficult for them to see who’s up to no good.  Take envelopes, for one. Envelopes make it much fiddlier to see what’s in the letters we send to one another – and they could show anything: that envelope could contain financial fraud, revenge porn, or even be plotting a murder. What is it hiding? Modern Britain is unreasonable to state snoopers in so many other ways too. Inconsiderately we put locks on our doors, with no regard for how much more difficult this will make things if the authorities need to get into our home.

In July 2018, Elizabeth Denham – the woman in charge of enforcing the UK’s laws on data protection – appeared on the Today programme, and made a stark allegation. 'In 2014 and 2015, the Facebook platform allowed an app… that ended up harvesting 87 million profiles of users around the world that was then used by Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 presidential campaign and in the referendum,' she told the show’s seven million listeners. The UK’s Information Commissioner – who is in charge of enforcing data protection rules – Elizabeth Denham, said this as she announced her intention to fine Facebook £500,000 for its role in failing to protect users’ data.

As the long-overdue intelligence and security committee report into Russian interference in the UK is finally published – after a needless and politicised delay – most eyes are (rightly) focused on claims around Brexit, Russian infiltration of the British establishment and killings on UK soil. But there’s a section of the report that, while less immediately startling, must not be missed and it comes as the report discusses potential threats to UK elections, referendums and our broader political process. There’s some reassurance in the fact that our low-tech election system, which is still primarily based on manually counting paper ballots marked by pencil (or pens, if you bring your own), is remarkably hard to hack directly.

Such is the polarised state of the UK in 2020 that to unite the policy wonks of the left and the right a government policy must be either magnificent, or magnificently stupid. Unfortunately for the otherwise fêted chancellor Rishi Sunak, his policy to encourage companies to keep their furloughed workers in employment has managed to fall into the second category. Like many truly stupid policies, the Job Retention Bonus sounds quite sensible when it’s first set out: for every furloughed employee who is brought back to work and who still has a job by the end of January 2021, the government will pay the company that employs them a £1,000 bonus. On the face of it, that sounds reasonable – why not reward companies for sticking with their workers?

There is nothing some Conservatives like talking about more than Huawei. Each new development in global politics is a new chance to talk about the Chinese telecoms giant and the rollout of 5G. China and the US having a trade row? Huawei. Coronavirus originating in China? Huawei. The day of the week rhymes with Huawei? Perfect. Reports of a new review by the UK's National Cyber-Security Centre (NCSC) on Huawei and security have, then, found a welcome audience among Conservatives looking for an excuse to pull the plug. But even the new NCSC review shows things are more complicated than they first appear: the agency is warning that US sanctions on Huawei might force the UK to use insecure third-party replacement spare parts, making it a security risk.

Experts have a get-out clause of which politicians can only dream when they are speaking from the podium at press briefings. While ministers are expected to be able to answer questions on any matter, there and then, and have details at their fingertips, advisors can escape most tricky questions with a simple few words: that’s outside my area of expertise. That makes it all the more baffling that when asked by journalists about the risk of fraudsters exploiting the government’s new track and trace system, not one, but two deputy chief medical officers decided to comment and belittle the risks involved. Deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries was particularly sanguine.

If there is hope, it lies in contact tracing. The countries that have successfully managed Covid-19 outbreaks and reopened without second peaks (at least so far) have done so through extensive track and trace infrastructure to prevent recurring outbreaks, sometimes after instituting general lockdown. The UK plan is no different: for weeks, ministers have been talking up efforts to build a UK infrastructure to handle the difficult task of rapidly testing every suspected case of Covid-19, and then quickly contacting everyone they may have recently come into contact with, and testing them too.