Welcome back to Westminster, David Cameron. The return of the former PM to frontline politics has prompted a deluge of stories, mostly concerning the business links he built up in his post-premiership career. One theme that keeps cropping up is China – hardly surprising, given that Cameron is now charged with running British foreign policy.

Indeed, today’s Sunday Times reports that Lord Cameron helped to secure up to $3 billion in investment for a controversial project run by a sanctioned Chinese company and launched by President Xi. He was paid to visit Dubai and Abu Dhabi and lobby potential investors on behalf of Port City Colombo, a development in the Sri Lankan capital that critics fear could become a Chinese military base. According to his spokesman today:

Mr Cameron has not engaged in any way with China or any Chinese company about these speaking events. The Port City project is fully supported by the Sri Lankan government.

It comes just four weeks after an earlier version of the story by Politico described Cameron as ‘the smiling face of Chinese interests in the Indo-Pacific’ and reported his defence as follows:

His spokesperson said the former PM had had no direct contact with either the Chinese government or the Chinese firm involved.

Given the headlines, don’t expect questions about the exact nature of Cameron’s links to China to go away anytime soon…