For Christopher Cash it was а job he adored. The young parliamentary researcher, then in his late 20s, was a China specialist working successively for two influential backbenchers, Tom Tugendhat and Alicia Kearns. He had a parliamentary pass and was plugged into Westminster’s gossip network during 2022, a year of Conservative turmoil in Westminster, three prime ministers and future policy uncertainty.
At the same time, Cash was in close contact with a friend, Christopher Berry, a teacher based in Hangzhou, eastern China, where the Britons had first met five years earlier. They discussed politics constantly, using an encrypted app. At one point, on 18 July, Berry allegedly told him he had met a senior Chinese Communist party leader (though he now denies meeting anybody of that rank). In a reply the next day, Cash said: “You’re in spy territory now.”
