The story started in September when MI5 was making a huge fuss about Chinese intelligence services operating in the UK.
A newspaper called the Bharat Express News (in a thinly disguised vehicle for someone who wanted to make a point) ran an item about this obsession with the Chinese.
Now don't get me wrong. Yes the Chinese have been sniffing around various British institutions, particularly in the academic community. I can't see anything wrong with this since it is all open and above board (so far as I know).
But the point is that MI5 is very good at burglary, tracing and following cars, standing around outside people's homes generally making a nuisance of themselves, and that sort of thing.
What it is not good at is understanding the cutting edge of scientific and engineering research. It doesn't do that.
Anyway, rant over. But I was clearly not the only one to feel cynical about the fuss MI5 was making, since the story I referred to earlier appeared on the net. On September 20 last year I ran the following on my blog in response to the story.
"The current tsunami of stories about Chinese spying in the UK, whipped up by secret MI5 briefing, illustrates the weakness of having an 'intelligence' service obsessed with secrecy but not at all bothered about prosecution. MI5 does its work by PR not by really exercising any control over foreign spies (if there are any).
In America about 150 alleged (or convicted) Chinese spies have been summoned or brought to the courts. In Britain the total is precisely zero. None at all."
This is my version based on the original Bharat Express News article. The original has disappeared. So too has my blog. It has been hacked.
It is all a very small matter but it illustrates how MI5 uses secrecy. It is not employed to capture reds under the beds but to spare their red faces.
This is what I used to get when I tried the link.
Jonathan Brind