IT’S probably for the best that Chinese hackers haven’t yet managed to tap the texts of Sir Keir Starmer’s top team.
Imagine one of Xi’s minions choking on his prawn balls at the sweary messages being swapped this past week, before Googling who on earth this Andy Burnham fella was.
Not that Google is accessible for most citizens here in China, of course.
Luckily for the apparatchiks in the Communist Party, I have a pretty good idea of what’s being said behind closed doors in Downing Street of late.
As one senior ally of the PM puts it to me: “Andy is a selfish prat who’s just in it for himself.
“Let’s not forget this is the guy who lost two leadership elections, including to Corbyn.
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“And spare me all this ‘King of the North’ stuff.”
Starmer himself was rather more diplomatic about the Manchester Mayor on the plane to Beijing on Tuesday night, saying he is doing an “excellent job”.
Horrific bout
His jaw tightened as he trotted out the pre-rehearsed line with all the conviction of a hostage swearing allegiance to his captors at gunpoint.
But it did the trick in containing a row that only a few days ago had threatened to blow up into a horrific bout of leadership blood-letting.
It still might — and if Labour loses the Gorton and Denton by-election, then his fortunes could rapidly death-spiral.
Yet for now the mutiny is on hold. Burnham is stewing. Wes Streeting is loath to plunge a dagger. Angela Rayner is still too tied up in her tax drama.
Westminster is a pressure cooker waiting to explode at any moment, but for the next few days it will fade into the background as Starmer visits China.
Britain has long been at sea in its handling of relations with Beijing’s authoritarian regime, yo-yoing between David Cameron’s love-bombing and more recent arm’s-length treatment.
The PM gets by on the world stage relatively unscathed. The issue has never been his position as a world leader.
Jack Elsom
Whether we have been sweet or sour in our embrace of China, some things have remained fundamental.
They spy on us relentlessly, they commit appalling human rights violations, but they give us cheap goods and are a growing economic and military power.
Starmer is right about one thing — China is too big to ignore and must be engaged.
The PM certainly looked relaxed as he dressed down in an open black shirt for his flight to Beijing with 50 business leaders in tow.
It was a moment months in the making, with officials the length and breadth of Whitehall mobilised to organise this important trip.
The PM personally has been involved in meetings this past week to put the finishing touches on the choreography and details of a flurry of business deals expected out of Beijing.
This is the point he wants to ham up from his gazillionth jaunt abroad: Trade with China to keep prices down at home.
He now tries to sell everything through the prism of tackling the cost of living, having identified it as his last hope to claw back popularity.
And I’m sure he will get along with Xi just fine, navigating the supreme leader in Beijing with the same careful tiptoeing he navigates the supreme leader in the White House.
Starmer will even gift the Chinese premier — supposedly a massive Manchester United fan — the match ball from the side’s 3-2 victory over his own beloved Arsenal last weekend.
He’s had some practice handling strongmen and their egos, and so far the only potential diplomatic misstep was when the vegetarian PM told me he didn’t like tofu — a key Chinese export.
But if it is a warmer relationship with Beijing that he wants, he should not be surprised when the criticism intensifies at home the next time they commit an act of hostility against us.
If he doesn’t manage to tame the Chinese Dragon — and there’s no reason to think that he will — then people will ask: what was the point of all the niceties?
Starmer is already vulnerable to “kow-tow” allegations after green-lighting Beijing’s new London super-embassy.
Make or break
And there is a sense that he is now just so unpopular that anything even slightly controversial — and China is definitely controversial — will automatically be held against him.
His supporters point to his actions on the world stage as one his main strengths since coming to office, highlighting especially his work on Ukraine.
Critics blast him as “Never Here Keir” who bends the knee to strongmen like Donald Trump in an unedifying display to secure only marginally more favourable trade terms.
In truth Starmer has proven able at walking a line between the two, and is likely to replicate that cautious conviviality with China.
Call it sucking up. Call it strategic schmoozing. Call it statesmanship.
Whatever it is, the PM gets by on the world stage relatively unscathed.
The issue has never been his position as a world leader.
It has been his shortcomings in Westminster, where his political career is on thin ice.
Back in Britain the next few months are fraught with flashpoints that will really be make or break for Starmer.
High in the skies above China, the familiar voice of the PM came over the airplane Tannoy as we began our descent into Beijing.
“Sit back, relax. I’ll be bringing the plane in from here,” he joked.
But the plane is currently heading for the mountain — and some of the crew are now thinking about storming the cockpit.
