Anger in Salisbury over stay-away Corbyn

JEREMY Corbyn has been criticised by Salisbury council for failing to make an official visit to the town after the novichok poisonings.

The leader of Salisbury’s city council, Matthew Dean, said he had not even realised the Labour leader had visited at all until Mr Corbyn mentioned the trip in the Commons on Wednesday.

Labour said Mr Corbyn made a private visit to the city on July 21, staying overnight on the way to another event.

The city council has welcomed visitors including the Prime Minister, two home secretaries, numerous ministers and Prince Charles since the events in March. Mr Dean, the town’s Conservative council leader, said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s office has made no contact at all with the city council. If he did visit, I’m sad that we didn’t have the opportunity to explain what we’ve been doing to recover from this terrible incident.

‘We would have liked the opportunity for our officers to have briefed him and possibly to have arranged for him to meet residents, businesses and agencies involved. As the leader of the Opposition I would like him to come.’

The criticism comes a day after Boris Johnson accused Mr Corbyn of using ‘weaselly language’ after he stopped short of linking the Salisbury attack to Vladimir Putin.

Yesterday Labour MP Mike Gapes suggested Mr Corbyn’s spin doctor should quit for ‘dissembling’ over Russia.

Mr Gapes, a former chairman of the foreign affairs committee, said his leader’s spokesman Seumas Milne had ‘attempted to divert attention from the real culprits – Putin’s regime’.