Boris’ personal attack on Corbyn ‘not helpful’

BORIS Johnson’s labelling of Jeremy Corbyn as the Kremlin’s “useful idiot” has been described by a minister in his own department as “not helpful at all”.

The Foreign Secretary used a Sunday Times article to accuse the Labour leader of lending “false credibility” to Moscow by not blaming the Russian state unequivocally over the Salisbury nerve agent attack.

Mr Johnson said the Kremlin had released a “torrent of absurdity” following the incident which left Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia critically ill in hospital.

Accusing Mr Corbyn of playing “Putin’s game”, Mr Johnson said the Labour leader’s position on Russia’s culpability “shames himself by lending it succour”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Westminster Hour, Foreign Office Minister Mark Field said the “ordinary rules of political gravity” do not apply to Mr Johnson.

“I would always try and play the ball and not the man when it comes to these things,” said Mr Field.

“I think to get personal about it is not helpful at all.”

A Labour spokesman said Mr Johnson had “made a fool of himself and undermined the Government” by misrepresenting the findings of the Porton Down laboratory on the source of the Novichok chemical agent.

Mr Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter were left fighting for their lives in hospital after being found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury on March 4. The former spy is said to be improving rapidly and no longer in a critical condition, while his daughter has said she is growing stronger by the day.