I first wrote about the risks and rumours around Huawei — and made bad jokes about its name — in September 2012. That was seven years after BT started ordering cheap equipment from the Chinese telecoms giant without, apparently, delving into stories about its military-connected origins. But 2012 was the year when Huawei was reported to be working with GCHQ via a ‘Cyber-Security Evaluation Centre’ in Banbury to prove its kit was not open to hackers and did not contain ‘backdoor’ listening devices.