One of Jeremy Corbyn’s top allies worked as a London correspondent for the Soviet Union’s news agency during the Cold War. Unite union Chief of Staff Andrew Murray – who was seconded to Corbyn’s inner circle during last year’s General Election campaign – worked for the USSR’s Novosti organisation between 1986-7 (the height of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). Journalism was often used by the Soviets as a front for intelligence activities…

Murray’s links to Corbyn are substantial: Jezza has praised his “enormous abilities” and both have served as chairman of the Stop the War Coalition. As former Tribune editor Paul Anderson notes:

“Murray, head backstairs honcho of Unite, the main union backer of Corbyn, used to buy space for advertorial in left-wing British papers for Novosti, the Soviet press agency.”

On the Agent COB story, Anderson, an expert on eighties links between the Soviet Union and the British left, says: “My hunch is that there is still a fair bit more of this to come…”