Memo to the BBC: He will come for you too

IT was the moment Jeremy Corbyn’s genial mask slipped to reveal the totalitarian thug beneath. With a menacing smile, he looked into the camera and warned media bosses that they are right to be worried about the prospect of a Labour Government.

‘We’ve got news for them,’ he said. ‘Change is coming.’

It’s not only Tories who should feel deeply queasy about the Opposition leader’s threat to Press freedom after this paper and others exposed his Cold War contacts with a spy for Communist Czechoslovakia.

Indeed, the right to report facts and express views that may be uncomfortable to politicians – Right, Left or centre – is the very bedrock on which democracy rests.

And though the Labour leader seeks to laugh off reports of his meetings in the 1980s with Czech agent Jan Sarkocy as ‘ fantasies, smears and lies’, it is an undisputed fact that they took place.

It is a fact, too, that they are recorded in the archives of the Czech secret service, while Stasi files show spies infiltrated Mr Corbyn’s Labour Action for Peace.

True, it is improbable that the Labour leader could offer much of value to our Cold War enemies. Unlike the ‘useful idiots’ (as Lenin called his helpers in the West) he was almost certainly a useless idiot. But what we don’t know, because Mr Corbyn has made a sinister video instead of answering questions, is why he met the Czech, what they discussed – and what led the spy to believe this backbencher was the right man to give information on Britain’s security services.

Aren’t these questions the media has a duty to ask – and the public a right to have answered? Indeed, it is nothing less than shameful that the BBC has made light of the evidence, focusing instead on Mr Corbyn’s attack on the Press.

The Corporation’s staff should watch out. If this Marxist comes to power, he’ll be gagging them, too.

As No 10 put it yesterday (and Theresa May is no stranger to Press criticism): ‘Shining a light into dark corners and asking awkward, uncomfortable questions is the Press’s job. It is the job of elected politicians to provide answers.’

We’re still waiting, Mr Corbyn.