Johnson brands Corbyn Kremlin’s ‘useful idiot’ over spy’s poisoning

Boris Johnson has hit out at the “torrent of absurdity” from Moscow following the Salisbury nerve agent attack – and accused Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn of being the Kremlin’s “useful idiot”.

The Foreign Secretary said the Kremlin had been peddling an “avalanche of lies and disinformation” since the attack, which left Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in hospital.

He stepped up the Tory attack on Mr Corbyn, claiming the Labour leader was lending “false credibility” to the propaganda from Moscow by refusing to say “unequivocally” that the Russian state was responsible for the attack.

The Foreign Secretary said the Labour leader was playing “Putin’s game” and “shames himself by lending it succour”. A Labour spokesman hit back, claiming that 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 daughter Yulia, 33, were left fighting for their lives in hospital after being found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury on 4 March.

The former spy is said by medics to be improving rapidly and no longer in a critical condition, while his daughter is awake and has said she is growing stronger by the day.

But the Foreign Office has said the pair are likely go have “ongoing medical needs” and thoughts in Whitehall have turned to what happens when they are well enough to leave hospital.

Moscow has denied being responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals.