Try four weeks of The Spectator absolutely free.

And, for this month only, you'll receive a Spectator wireless phone charger.

Go to www.com.uk forward slash charger.

Hello and welcome to all dearies.

First up is Douglas Murray on why we shouldn't be hugging China any closer.

Like nearly everything named a scandal affair or given the suffix gait, almost nobody now remembers the Dalai Lama affair.

But back in 2012, flush with recently acquired power and optimism, David Cameron, and a man

called Nick Clegg, went to see the Dalai Lama while he was on a trip to London.

Whether Cameron and Clegg knew what they were getting into wasn't clear.

The pair had a short meeting with the llama at St Paul's Cathedral,

or at least in one of those bland conference ante rooms English cathedrals

constructed in the last century to atone for the

splendours next door. Looking like a couple of travelling salesmen trying to flog the Dalai Lama a

timeshare, Cameron and Clegg had a meeting and moved on. Not so Beijing. The British ambassador was immediately called in and given the traditional post-lama telling off.

In the wake of the meeting, the Chinese Communist Party announced relations with Britain had been damaged.

Sure enough, Chinese investment into the UK went on hold.

A trip to the UK by Chairman Wu Banguo was called off,

and the CCP talked about how hurt the Chinese people had been by the meeting.

You can do that sort of thing if you are a dictatorship.

Pretend to act as a mouthpiece of more than a billion people,

not one of whom can hold you to account. But Cameron got understandably spooked, and, proving himself

years ahead of the game, announced plans to socially distance himself from the Dalai Lama.

...