STRIKING the right balance is a tricky job for political leaders at the easiest of times let alone ones like the current uncertain climate we live in.

Having sought to “strike a balance” between reopening the economy and keeping people safe from the ravages of Covid-19, Boris Johnson was this week also seeking to draw the correct political line on the UK’s foreign relations in the eagerly-awaited Integrated Review, bringing together the UK Government’s approach on foreign, defence and security matters.

Indeed, the 100-page document was billed as the most radical reassessment of Britain’s place in the world since the end of the Cold War.

Interestingly, some parts of the Government review seemed to get as much flak from Conservatives as they did from Labour, the SNP and Liberal Democrats.

Take China. On the back of the Huawei 5G telecommunications row, Beijing’s decision to clamp down on security and democracy in Britain’s former colony of Hong Kong and the human rights violations amounting to what London branded "barbarism" against the Uighur minority in Xinjiang, some might have expected the Prime Minister to have gone in hard against President Xi and his colleagues or as one Conservative backbencher put it “finally call out China for the geo-strategic threat that it is”.

But, as might have been noted with the UK’s approach to Saudi Arabia, punches were diplomatically pulled and a more nuanced policy was adopted. China was described politely as a “systemic challenge”.

During Commons exchanges, Mr Johnson responded to the heat from Tory benches, declaring: “There is a balance to be struck, because, after all, we have a strong trading relationship with China worth about £81 billion. China is the second largest economy in the world and a fact of our lives and we must accept that fact in a clear-eyed way.”

In other words, trade means jobs means prosperity.

But the PM was also keen to stress how, on Huawei - with a little persuasion from the former Trump administration - the Conservative Government had protected “critical national infrastructure,” that on the Uighars it had “called out” China on human rights abuses and with Hong Kong Britain had kindly offered a “refuge and abode” to some three million Hong Kong Chinese.

Perhaps the strongest purveyor of Tory disgruntlement was Julian Lewis, who happens to chair Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee, who denounced the Johnson approach to Beijing as proving the “grasping naivety of the Cameron-Osborne years still lingers on in some Departments of State”.

The PM hit back, insisting that, as regards China, no one wanted a cold war. That, it seems, continues to be the preserve of Russia, which since 1945 and the defeat of Nazi Germany has kept relations with the West in a permafrost.

The review pulled no punches here but branded Putin’s government as public enemy number one, describing Russia currently as an “active threat”.

Post the Salisbury poisoning, the Government pointed to Moscow’s threatened use of “nefarious” weapons and its use of cyber misinformation to “sow chaos” across western democracies by “spewing out baseless propaganda”.

Only this week, US President Joe Biden agreed with the description of the Russian President as a “killer” and warned Putin would “pay a price" for trying to undermine the 2020 US election.

A key part of the review emphasises the need to maintain the nuclear threat in the face of other countries investing in “novel nuclear technologies and developing new ‘warfighting’ nuclear systems”.

So, controversially, it has decided to up the limit on its warhead stockpile from 180 to 260 on the Clyde. This, of course, sparked a wave of criticism from the Scottish Government with Humza Yousaf denouncing nukes as “morally, strategically and economically wrong” and that Edinburgh's opposition to Trident remained “unequivocal”.

When the subject was raised in the Commons, it simply gave Mr Johnson a chance to attack the SNP on the constitutional question and its plans for a “reckless referendum”.

It also enabled him to tweak Sir Keir’s nose. The Labour leader insisted his party’s support for Britain’s nuclear deterrent was “non-negotiable”.

But the PM snapped that the Opposition was “all over the place” on Trident with Labour frontbenchers voting against its maintenance - Angela Rayner and Lisa Nandy, the deputy leader and Shadow Foreign Secretary, no less – and, of course, Scottish Labour is still opposed to the deterrent’s renewal.

Indeed, one of the more interesting aspects of the review was how Mr Johnson weaved in a strong constitutional thread to the policy tapestry.

Having preceded the report’s publication with a Union love-bomb announcement of another 1,000-plus Government jobs heading north of Hadrian’s Wall, he made clear the review would “reinforce the Union” with a promise of warships built in Scotland and warm words about how those fantastic Scots had played a blinder in keeping the country safe from obliteration from our friends in Russia.

Of course, only time will tell whether or not our political leaders are able to figure out the conundrum of striking the right balance. We’ll let them know, in a clear-eyed way, at the ballot box.