I might be feeling more confident about the government’s decision to give Huawei a limited role in building Britain’s 5G network, ‘on the advice of intelligence agencies’, were I not reminded of the effectiveness of British spooks by the recent appearances of Alexandre del Valle on French radio.

Del Valle is the author of numerous books on Islamism and the Middle East, a knowledge accrued over many decades, including a spell in the late 1990s working for France’s General Secretariat for Defence and National Security, an inter-ministerial body answering to the Prime Minister.