Corbyn and the spy

IT’S no great surprise that Jeremy Corbyn consorted with a Czech spy during the Cold War. After all, most of Britain’s hardLeft felt more allegiance to the Soviet bloc in that era than they ever did to Britain.

But it’s a useful reminder that the Labour leader’s Marxist politics come before his loyalty to his country. Not only was Czechoslovakia a repressive totalitarian state, it was also our enemy.

Although he met Lieutenant Jan Dymic at least three times and was encouraged to discuss sensitive intelligence matters, Mr Corbyn denies knowing he was a spy and claims he thought he was merely a friendly diplomat. Clearly others were not so easily fooled. In 1989 – three years after their first meeting – Dymic was thrown out of Britain as part of a Czech spy-ring expelled by Margaret Thatcher.

So was Mr Corbyn breathtakingly naive – or is he dissembling? Take your choice. He’s an unreconstructed Marxist who has more sympathy for communist regimes than his own country, or he’s an impressionable fool, lacking in judgment.

Either way, he could never be trusted to run the country.