Hello, I'm Rory Stewart, author, broadcaster, former Conservative Cabinet Minister,

and my new book Politics on the Edge, a memoir from within,

is my account of what it's really like to be a politician.

The humour of it, the tragedy of it,

the problems of dealing with the great challenges of our age

from climate change through to AI, and a suggestion, not just on what it's like,

but what some of the solutions might be to make our politics better.

Politics on the Edge, available now from Waterstance.

It's not often that the heads of MI5 and the FBI stand up together to address the public.

So when they recently did that, in order to issue an urgent warning,

we thought we'd better sit up and listen.

The most game-changing challenge we face comes from the Chinese Communist Party.

We need to talk about it. We need to act.

In recent years, we've seen China use the full gamut of spying tricks,

from hacking and cyber surveillance to influence operations in Parliament.

MI5 today issued this alert to parliamentarians.

They were warned Ms. Lee had been working with an arm of the Chinese Communist Party

to covertly interfere in UK politics.

How did China become the greatest threat to our national security

according to Western intelligence agencies?

And who and what are they targeting?

You're listening to stories of our times from the times and the Sunday times.

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