Right and wrong

Matthew d'Ancona, who writes from a right-wing perspective in the Guardian had a column yesterday which took up the fake news that Corbyn was an asset of communist Czech intelligence, a story which continues to run in the hard-right media today. Apparently meeting with anyone who may or may not have been a bona fide diplomat can now be construed as one's becoming an 'asset.' It is very hard to imagine how many MPs have not met with foreign diplomats over the years and decades. And some of those meetings will have been with diplomats from 'friendly' nations who nevertheless may have had interests inimical to British interests, particularly, for example, in the field of commerce when defence sales are at stake. Who knows what went on? But perhaps the explanation for the Czech interest in Corbyn was their prescience in the mid-1980s anticipating JC's rise to the leadership of the Labour Party whilst failing to spot the imminent collapse of their own country. As one 'sting' expose after another has shown, the real threat to parliament today lies more in the money-chasing instincts of influence peddlars than anything else, and they exist on all sides of the House. I banged off a letter to the Guardian but they didn't publish it:

'Matthew d'Ancona's comment column is premised, with very little equivocation on taking the word of a former Czech spy at face value. The ex-spy's claims, at least in the Mail Online version of the story, are not backed up by any other source. Nor is there any clue anywhere as to how much the man has been paid by the Daily Mail for his 'story.' There have been plenty of cases in the past of former Soviet spies sexing up or inventing incriminating stories to bolster their credentials to credulous western interests. Michael Foot called the Mail the Forger's Gazette. Take note, Matthew d'Ancona.'