How does an ostensibly private company come to be working with Downing Street?

It was ostensibly private, but unmistakably for his benefit.

Shadowy apprehensions of people also embolden anti-China hardliners, who say the state provides strong backing to even ostensibly private companies like Huawei.

But even the much vaunted, ostensibly private Japan Railways Group was for most of its history state-run, and even today is heavily subsidised.