Starmer should forcibly show his revulsion at the treatment of Jimmy Lai

To absolutely no one's surprise, after a two-year trial, the Hong Kong democracy activist and former media tycoon, Jimmy Lai, has been convicted of publishing seditious material and "colluding with foreign forces" under Hong Kong's National Security Law.

- MELANIE MCDONAGH

His sentence may be life imprisonment, but given that he is 78 and suffering from diabetes which has not been properly treated in detention, this may not last long. In any event he has already spent more than 1,800 days in solitary confinement. He was notably cheerful in court as the verdict was pronounced perhaps because his family was present but it is a grim prospect for him and, as is the intention, for anyone else thinking of criticising Chinese rule within Hong Kong. All his co-defendants pleaded guilty; chillingly, five became prosecution witnesses. The judgment was applauded in a statement by China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, which, in Mao-speak, called Lai a "running dog" and a "lackey" for external forces.

His son, Sebastien, put the matter another way in a press conference. His father's offence for China, he said, was that he "essentially said stuff that they didn't like".

Jimmy Lai is a rich man and he could have got out of China before his arrest in 2020. He didn't though. He stayed put to show solidarity with other democracy protesters.

And who are the individuals with who he is found to have had seditious contact? They include the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, David Alton, the human rights campaigner in the Lords, Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and Benedict Rogers, head of the organisation, Hong Kong Watch.

Scary, huh? Plus Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, among others.