Paper chase

Having trawled the papers for a 7am slot on Sky News, I can perhaps save you some trouble. Buy The Times today: it is simply brilliant. It’s splash tells us that MI5 has confirmed that British businesses are the subject of internet espionage by Chinese state organisations. This is laden with implications, especially in an era when the government is so lax about the information it has on us. Francis Elliot has penned a great summary of donorgate. Then we have one of those brilliant Times graphics which itself tells a story: how badly Brits survive cancer amongst Europeans yet (typically) spend more than anyone (words online, graphic isn’t). But crowning all this is Matthew Parris’s column on donorgate. As a biographer of parliamentary scandal, his complaint is that Labour can’t even organise a cover-up. It is, he says

“A tale of spivvy incompetence: a big stage, and a cast of insects. Second-rate ministers flanking a third-rate Prime Minister waited upon by fourth-rate courtiers sending out the begging bowl to fifth-rate sleeve-tuggers who aren’t even very rich”