This China spy scandal has exposed our state's rotten core

THERE is nothing like a walk around parliament to leave you melancholy. The once dynamic British state, which still celebrates itself in these Gothic halls and corridors with countless statues and portraits of Victorian derring-do, is now defined by paralysis. Build our way out of a housing crisis through the trusty British solution of new terraces? That's too difficult, sorry.

- Ben Judah

Ban the rampaging American bully XL, like we have done countless times before, with so many other dangerous dogs? Oh that's probably too difficult, too.

The extended metaphor for Britain that is the Palace of Westminster literally cracking up in front of your eyes, with daily falling lintels and exploding drains - is almost too on the nose for a country that has squandered its inheritance by failing to face up to its mounting problems until it is too late. And just like Britain fails to take security seriously, so too does parliament with its Chinese spies.