Starmer hoped China row would go away, but MPs prefer conspiracies to simple cock-ups

It’s all as clear as mud. If Keir Starmer thought that releasing the three witness statements of the deputy national security adviser (DNSA), Matthew Collins, late on Wednesday night was going to make the China spy case row go away, then he was in for a big disappointment.

- John Crace

There was no way MPs were going to let a story like this out of their clutches. 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.