Most boys grow out of spy games by their early teens.

There still exists into adulthood, however, a certain type who remain attracted to the idea of meeting in a dark corridor or on a park bench to counteract some insurgent political movement, real or imagined.

Each to their own.

Who are any of us to object to what another does in their own time with their own money as long as they aren’t breaking the law?

When these activities are funded by the public purse, it is only right, though, that they face public scrutiny.

(Image: Daily Record )

The exposure of the Integrity Initiative , a subsidiary of the Institute for Statecraft, earned the Sunday Mail a great deal of criticism around the turn of the year.

This newspaper was accused of unwittingly aiding Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine in a flawed pursuit of Jeremy Corbyn ’s political agenda.

It was nonsense then and it is even more clearly nonsense now.

The criticism and smears directed against Corbyn on the Integrity Initiative Twitter feed were an even more serious breach of political protocol than the Labour leader’s image being used as target practice by squaddies last week.

There’s an irony in the fact that one of the tweets in question called Corbyn a useful idiot.

That must be how the Integrity Initiative’s outliers, including several newspaper journalists, must surely now feel having gone to extraordinary lengths to defend its activities. The rug has been well and truly pulled following the revelation that Corbyn has received a written apology.

(Image: Getty Images)

Even more damaging, however, is the apparent admission from the Institute for Statecraft’s founder that these activities breached Foreign Office rules and Scottish charity law.

Chris Donnelly could barely have been much clearer when he said: “We put out something like 26,000 tweets.

“About 400 made reference to some political party or politician, and they were roughly equal between the main political parties, but we should not have sent [them] because the Foreign Office does not allow us to make any party political comment, nor does Scottish charity law.

“That was a mistake and we wrote letters of apology to Jeremy Corbyn.”

Forget the arguments about volume. It doesn’t matter whether the number of tweets classified as political numbered 400 or 40.

The fact there were any poses serious questions about the Institute for Statecraft and the Integrity Initiative’s competence.

On all of the known facts, we are now aware that the Integrity Initiative has apparently left itself exposed to Russian hackers, fallen foul of Foreign Office rules, made itself the subject of an emergency question in the House of Commons and apparently broken charity law.

Just as serious are the concerns about the effectiveness of its actual activities. They include the creation of clusters of media people, some who admit to being involved, others who don’t. In one case they apparently took a briefing on Scotland which offered about as much insight as one could gather from a five-minute Google search.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

Even after many of its flaws were exposed by this newspaper, its Twitter feed carried a smear attacking our journalists.

The Westminster Government spurned a golden opportunity to lance the boil back in December.

Taking an emergency question from Labour, Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan doubled down on the falsehood that Corbyn had been one of several politicians targeted equally.

He claimed the information about the Integrity Initiative had been made public because of a Russian hack, though later admitted this could not be proved.

The fact that in the four months since the project has apparently been continuing unencumbered by its complete exposure is, frankly, incredible.

Donnelly again framed criticism of his work as coming from propagandists, conspiracy theorists and crackpot believers in the Deep State. But that’s false. It’s insulting.

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When a publicly funded body is found to be behaving with questionable motives and diminished competence, then it is only right that legitimate questions are asked.

The time for some proper answers is long overdue.