With the Venezuela crisis and now the North Korea stand-off dominating the headlines, it’s an awkward August on the foreign affairs front for the Leader’s Office. Surprise surprise, Jez hasn’t exactly taken a tough line on Kim Jong-un’s pariah dictatorship and its ambition to unleash a global apocalypse, previously opposing sanctions and suggesting its designation as a ‘rogue state’ is just a “pretext for undermining” it. Likewise, commie Corbynista campaign chief Andrew Murray expressed his “basic position of solidarity with People’s Korea”. Naturally…

Most embarrassed of all should be Seumas Milne, who was defending the ‘rationality’ of the North’s desire to develop and stockpile nukes as early as 2009. He wrote in a Guardian column:

“The idea… that there is something irrational in North Korea’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons is clearly absurd. This is, after all, a state that has been targeted for regime change by the US ever since the end of the cold war, included as one of the select group of three in George Bush’s axis of evil in 2002, and whose Clinton administration guarantee of “no hostile intent” was explicitly withdrawn by his successor.”

So there you have it: Milne argued it was ‘rational’ for North Korea to ramp up efforts to acquire nukes, a proliferation process which has led us to where we are today. North Korea of course has made a lot of progress on literacy and equality…