Corbyn meets civil service chief after 'malicious' claims he is 'too frail' to become prime minister

Jeremy Corbyn is this afternoon meeting the head of the civil service to press his case for an independent inquiry on what Labour regards as “entirely unacceptable” briefing by officials on the state of his health.

The Labour leader is furious about a story published by The Times on Saturday, which quoted anonymous senior civil servants saying that a frail Mr Corbyn appeared not to have a firm grasp on issues and was being propped up by advisers.

A senior Labour spokesman described the comments as an unprecedented “hostile briefing” motivated by fear of a radical left-wing government. The individuals involved were “at best extremely ignorant, at worst clearly malicious”, he said.

Downing Street announced on Tuesday that the Cabinet Office would carry out an internal investigation into the “inappropriate and unacceptable” comments.

But the Labour spokesman said it was not acceptable for the civil service to “mark its own homework” and that Mr Corbyn would tell cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill that there must be an independent element to any inquiry.

The anonymous briefing of false information about Mr Corbyn’s health amounted to a “flagrant breach of civil service neutrality” which threatened to undermine trust in Whitehall, said the spokesman.

“We are talking about something which is a very well established and well recognised principle that all parties sign up to and the civil service signs up,” he said.

“It has clearly been breached in a very significant way that in my experience is unprecedented, including in the last period when there were radical differences between the political parties in the early 1980s.

“ As Jeremy and Jon Trickett and other Labour figures have made clear, there is clearly resistance and anxiety in sections of the establishment about the election of a radical, transformative Labour government that is determined to redistribute wealth and power. That clearly is the context in which this is taking place.

“These are people, whoever did these briefings, who are not genuinely concerned about Jeremy’s health - which I can assure you is excellent - but are actually concerned about the policies he stands for.”

The spokesman denied that Labour was mounting an attack on the civil service in general or subscribing to conspiracy theories.

He said that false rumours had been spread in recent months about Mr Corbyn’s health.

(Parliament Live)

“These are clearly not people who are genuinely concerned about Jeremy’s health, but concerned about the policies he stands for,” he said.

Labour had made public the fact that Mr Corbyn suffered from a muscle weakness behind one eye which gave him a squint, but "that is the limit of his health issues", said the spokesman.

He declined to say whether Labour suspected that Sir Mark himself was aware of the briefing.

And he did not say what disciplinary action should be taken if those responsible were unmasked.