From the House of Commons yesterday there came the familiar sound of screeching tyres, followed by rising smoke and the lingering aroma of scorched rubber.
Not for the first time this summer the Government was embarking on another fast paced U-turn.
The unfortunate minister yanking up the handbrake this time was Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden.
He had come to the House to announce he was ordering Chinese firm Huawei be stripped from Britain’s 5G network by 2027.
Thud.
The unfortunate minister yanking up the handbrake this time was Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden
Six months after backbench Tory MPs warned it might not be the wisest idea to invite what many see as an arm of the Chinese Communist Party inside the nation’s central nervous system, the penny had finally dropped.
Mr Dowden had prepared a deliberately muscular script.
He was ‘taking decisive action’ on Huawei and ‘closing the door’ on its involvement in our telecoms network.
He boasted of the UK’s digital infrastructure’s ‘security and resilience’ which he would ‘never compromise in pursuit of economic prosperity’.
How desperate Dowden was to sound assertive.
But he is not helped by a voice which possesses neither grit nor gravitas.
Mr Dowden had prepared a deliberately muscular script. He was ‘taking decisive action’ on Huawei and ‘closing the door’ on its involvement in our telecoms network
It’s half an octave too high. It lacks authoritative timbre.
Perhaps, like fellow squeaker George Osborne, he could seek vocal coaching. Or just start drinking brandy and chuffing cigars.
Labour’s front bench clucked like well-fed Burford Browns.
Culture spokesman Chi Onwurah described the Government’s handling of Huawei as a ‘car crash for the digital economy which could be seen from outer space’.
What’s more, their approach to national security had been ‘incomprehensively negligent’.
She strained each syllable on that word ‘incomprehensively’ as though savouring a fine Montrachet between her gums.
Having endured five years of Jeremy Corbyn defending our enemies, what a turn up it is to see the opposition crow over the Government’s handling of national security.
Steve McCabe (Lab, Birmingham Selly Oak), adopting his best ‘why-oh-why’ voice, asked if was still a good idea that a Chinese firm was building a nuclear power station at Hinkley Point.
Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda) barked angrily for a time about the Government’s digital strategy being ‘in tatters’.
On the Conservative benches there lingered an air of embarrassment. When this issue was debated back in January, not a single one of them had thought Huawei’s access to 5G a good idea. Why had ministers not listened then?
Dowden wearily advised Bryant to tone down the ‘false indignation and theatrics’.
Unsurprisingly, support for Huawei around the chamber was non-existent.
Nus Ghani (Con, Wealden) and Geraint Davies (Lab, Swansea W) attacked the firm’s dreadful human rights record.
Anthony Mangnall (Con, Totnes) asked why the UK was ever doing business with a firm which ‘perpetually uses slave labour’.
The one conciliatory voice was Richard Graham (Con, Gloucester), who stressed the importance of maintaining trade links with China.
On the Conservative benches there lingered an air of embarrassment.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Con, Chingford and Woodford Green) wanted Huawei removed from the 5G network from 2025, rather than the 2027 deadline set by Dowden
When this issue was debated back in January, not a single one of them had thought Huawei’s access to 5G a good idea.
Why had ministers not listened then?
Some offered Dowden a few watery words of support.
Newbie Duncan Baker (Con, N Norfolk) overdid it by suggesting the Government had put ‘national security over profit’ and shown the world ‘this sovereign nation won’t be pushed around by any country’.
Mr Baker, a fogeyish 40-year-old going on 75, needs to tone his toadying down a notch. He’s garnering a reputation as a frightful suck-up.
The most critical voices from the Conservative benches came towards the end.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Con, Chingford and Woodford Green) wanted Huawei removed from the 5G network from 2025, rather than the 2027 deadline set by Dowden.
David Johnston (Con, Wantage) agreed, suggesting that this would be much easier than other telecoms firms are making out.
Another Tory who’s been hot on Huawei in the past few months, Bob Seely (Con, Isle of Wight), spent the session studying a raft of papers laid out in front of him like ancient geological charts.
Like Duncan Smith, he felt seven years was a ‘very long time’ before the ban came into place, but was happy that – finally – it ‘looked like the long goodbye for Huawei’.
On that, at least, the House was unanimous. Huawei in the UK is history.