Labour backing, says Dugdale

Conservative and SNP teams to mark a campaign truce in honour of murdered Labour MP Jocox opinion polls for the Sunday newspapers put Labour between 35 per cent and 33 per cent, up significantly on the scores as low as 26 per cent it was recording early in the campaign.

The Tory advantage was narrowed to just nine points in one survey by Yougov for the Sunday Times – the first time it has been in single figures in a mainstream poll since Theresa May called the snap election on 18 April – prompting talk of a “wobble weekend” for the Tories.

Mr Corbyn’s comments were angrily denounced by Security Minister Ben Wallace, who said voters would be “outraged” by his refusal to “unequivocally” condemn the IRA.

The Labour leader said: “In the 1980s Britain was looking for a military solution in Ireland. It clearly was never going to work. Ask anyone in the British army at that time.

“Therefore you have to seek a peace process. You condemn the violence of those that laid bombs that killed large numbers of innocent people and I do.”

Pressed as to whether he would “condemn the IRA without equating it to...?” Mr Corbyn replied: “No, I think what you have to say is all bombing has to be condemned and you have to bring about a peace process.”

Mr Wallace, who served as an army officer in Northern Ireland, said: “People up and down the country will rightly be outraged that Jeremy Corbyn won’t unequivocally condemn the IRA for the bloodshed, bombs and brutal murders they inflicted on a generation of innocent people.”

“We want a Prime Minister, not a leader of a protest movement who has opposed nearly every measure to keep this country safe in the last 30 years.”

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Mr Corbyn “hasn’t got a clue” whether he wants Britain to remain in the single market or the customs union and that EU negotiators would “have him for breakfast”. BAD DAY Damian Green – The work and pensions secretary appeared all at sea on television as he struggled to explain plans for a “dementia tax” which has prompted a backlash among MPS