Oh dear. It looks like the Tories’ obsession with a Czechoslovakian spy story is coming back to bite them.
After days of hysterical coverage in the right-wing press, the story of a Czechoslovakian agent, posing as a diplomat, meeting Jeremy Corbyn in the Eighties (and – by the way – getting no information, and being discredited by Czech officials) has run and run, and the Conservative ministers have got involved.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson accused Corbyn of “betraying” Britain, and Security Minister Ben Wallace compared the Labour leader to notorious Cold War double agent Kim Philby on Twitter. Ben Bradley, the Tory MP and vice-chair for youth, had to remove his tweet claiming Corbyn “sold British secrets to Communist spies” after Labour threatened legal action.
So spare a thought for Steve Baker, who not only has to defend the government’s incompetence as Brexit Minister, but was interrogated about his colleagues’ claims on the Daily Politics today, by a ferocious Andrew Neil:
“Has he betrayed his country?” asks @afneil after claim from defence secretary about the Labour leader
“Jeremy Corbyn, I think, is a grave danger to this country because of the ideas in which he believes and what that would mean…” @SteveBakerHW
#bbcdp pic.twitter.com/Foay2XphNZ
— BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics (@daily_politics) February 21, 2018
Asking repeatedly if Corbyn has “betrayed his country” and if so, how, Neil had Baker squirming as he failed to defend his government colleagues and attempted to back up his claim that Corbyn is a “grave danger to his country”.
Czech mate.
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