The UK’s foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has refused to criticise U.S. President Donald J Trump for calling the leftist London mayor, Sadiq Khan, a “stone cold loser”.

President Trump has hit back at Mayor Khan, who on Sunday called the leader of the United States a “global threat”, saying on Twitter that Khan had “done a terrible job as Mayor of London”.

“He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me,” President Trump continued before landing in the UK on Monday morning.

“[Khan] reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job – only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now!” he added.

….Kahn reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job – only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2019

Trump was met on the tarmac of London Stansted airport by Tory leadership hopeful and foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt. In an interview with Sky News after greeting the President, journalist Adam Boulton asked Mr Hunt it he condemned the comments about London’s anti-Trump mayor, with the foreign secretary refusing to do so, saying instead that it was Khan who had started the feud.

“Well, the elected mayor of London has made some pretty choice insults about Donald Trump, and all I would say is that that spate started because the mayor of London, and other people in the Labour Party, decided to boycott this visit. And I think that is just totally inappropriate,” Mr Hunt said.

The foreign secretary also refused to entertain the belief held by the far-left and progressive wings of the British political establishment that it may have been “inappropriate” to invite President Trump for a State Visit.

“What is really inappropriate, is for anyone to boycott a visit by the President of the United States,” Mr Hunt said, in relation to the leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, and the London mayor voicing their opposition to the visit.

“This is a State Visit, not a political visit, he’s been hosted by Her Majesty the Queen to mark the great friendship between our two country,” he added.

“For the Labour Party to be boycotting this visit on the grounds of sexism and racism in a day where their candidate in the Peterborough by-election is being accused of liking an antisemitic post on Facebook, when they are being accused of turning a blind eye to the terrible behaviour in the Labour Party HQ, this is about virtue signalling on Labour’s behalf, this isn’t about any position of principle,” the foreign secretary said.

President Trump is in the UK for a three-day State Visit, as guest of the Queen, where he will meet with the monarch, Prime Minister Theresa May, and take part a commemoration ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.