The Full English with Alexander Brown - Episode 88 - The Spy Who Loved Xi - video Dailymotion

The Full English with Alexander Brown - Episode 88 - The Spy Who Loved Xi

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:28 Hello and welcome to Full English, a show that combines politics with not being an agent of a hostile state.

00:33 The same allegedly can't be said for everyone working in Parliament, we're just now on the lookout for Chinese spies.

00:39 Let's get into it.

00:41 This week it emerged a parliamentary researcher had been arrested on suspicion of spying,

00:46 which would somehow combine one of the coolest jobs with one of the most mundane.

00:50 Instead of cool sports cars, skydiving and all the other stuff James Bond does,

00:57 or having cups of tea and listening to debates about potholes,

01:00 who'd have thought espionage could be so profoundly dull?

01:04 I mean anyone who's watched the last few James Bond films, absolute dirge. Terrible, terrible.

01:10 And what's interesting here is not the individual accusation, but that Parliament has no idea how to respond to it.

01:17 More than one MP has told me the only way to be sure would be just to ban everyone who's been to China,

01:22 which you can't really do, that's not a feasible approach.

01:26 At the same time, the Prime Minister is so desperate to have improved relations with Beijing,

01:31 Richie Tunac won't even say if his foreign secretary has raised the issue with his counterpart.

01:36 We know China is spying, what to do about it?

01:40 Because we do know China is trying to influence our democracy, but what MPs don't know is how to stop it.

01:46 And that is a very scary position to be in, indeed.

01:54 So what have we learned? Firstly, that China are far more interested in Westminster than most of the general public.

01:59 And secondly, there isn't an obvious way to stop spies, which is not good.

02:04 Until next time, I've been Alexander Brown, and you haven't.

02:08 Zaijian. That's goodbye in Chinese.

02:11 The pronunciation is probably wrong, but I listened to it several times before filming.

02:16 [Music]

02:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]