"This was their moment to take centre stage. When they could bathe in their own importance. When they could believe that they and national security were one and the same thing. There again, whatever Starmer had put into the public domain would never have been enough. Even a letter from the director of public prosecutions (DPP), Stephen Parkinson, falling on his sword and admitting he had taken his eye off the ball, would have been dismissed as irrelevant."
"When it comes to a choice between cock-up and conspiracy, most MPs naturally gravitate to conspiracy. So much more exciting. Life's too dull when it's just some unelected apparatchik doing a job badly. As the facts change, MPs merely change their conspiracy theories to fit the new evidence. In her embarrassing tirades at Wednesday's prime minister's questions, Kemi Badenoch had insisted that Starmer was at the centre of a major cover-up."
MPs seized the China spy case as a chance to dominate public attention and equate themselves with national security. Released witness statements by the deputy national security adviser failed to satisfy parliamentary appetite and instead intensified speculation. Many MPs gravitated toward conspiracy explanations rather than accepting error or incompetence. Prominent opposition figures accused Keir Starmer of orchestrating a cover-up and of pressuring the DNSA to alter evidence, even suggesting espionage ties to China. When that narrative lacked supporting evidence, critics quickly adopted the opposite claim that Starmer's absence of interference proved complicity. Political theatrics and partisan framing overshadowed evidential shortcomings.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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