Disinformation campaigns are nothing new – and we can expect more before this US election is over

The west has a long and dishonourable history of interference in the affairs of other countries in the developing world, says Kim Sengupta. It should not come as a shock that foreign states are adopting the same tactics

Using China as a threat, especially on coronavirus, is an election ploy by Trump (Getty)

Allegations of malign foreign interference in the politics of other countries have become so rife that they no longer surprise. It would now be quite unusual to be told that an election or a referendum had passed without a disinformation campaign from abroad.

The long-awaited and recently published Russia report by the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee produced no smoking guns. What was interesting was not the allegations of Russian interference in the Brexit and Scottish referendums and the last general election, but that nothing was done because of an extraordinary avoidance of responsibility for the security and intelligence services and government ministries.

The UK is not the only country which had been subjected to cyberattacks. The French, German and Italian elections, and the Catalan referendum, have all been surrounded by claims of clandestine Russian operations.