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Jeremy Corbyn’s problems just keep growing. After last week’s front-page stories by three Jewish newspapers calling the Labour leader an “existential threat” and the Observer digging up comments Corbyn made about Israel being behind Egyptian Islamist attacks, author Dave Rich has uncovered some historic associations that won’t do the Labour leader any favours.

In August 2012, Corbyn (right) appeared on Iran’s Press TV with a convicted Hamas terrorist named Dr Abdul Aziz Umar. “He got seven life sentences for helping to organise a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 2003 that killed seven people,” Rich points out. The bombing at the Café Hillel took place during the second intifada. Among the victims were Dr David Applebaum, head of the emergency room at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, and his daughter Nava, who was due to be married the next day.

Umar was charged with providing a safe house for the terrorists and guarding the property as they fitted the bomber with a suicide belt. He was released a year before his Press TV appearance as part of the prisoner swap arranged to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

“You have to ask the question why they are in prison in the first place,” said the now Labour leader. “I’m glad that those who were released were released.”

Umar was appearing on the show by video link but Corbyn pointed out the pair had met before.

“I met many of the brothers, including the brother who’s been speaking here when they came out of prison, when I was in Doha earlier this year,” he said.Rich also notes that this appearance on Press TV took place seven months after the channel lost its Ofcom licence. This followed a £100,000 fine for broadcasting the forced interrogation of a Newsweek journalist held prisoner in Iran.

The Labour Press office said this morning: “In 2012 Jeremy was commenting on the prison conditions of Palestinian prisoners, including elected representatives. He was of course in no way supporting or endorsing the actions of the prisoners, but defending their rights under international law.”

Stones guru who flared up the 1960s

Christopher Gibbs, antiquarian and style guru to The Rolling Stones, has died. Gibbs, who passed away last week aged 79, had an eventful life: he is credited with bringing about the flares and floral shirts revolution of the 1960s. He was also at Keith Richards’ Sussex mansion when it was raided by the police and Marianne Faithfull was escorted out wearing nothing but a fur rug. Model Jasmine Guinness and fashion journalist Hamish Bowles were among those to pay tribute online to the original man of wealth and taste.

HIS documentary series Travels in Trumpland with Ed Balls saw the former shadow Chancellor slip into a wrestling leotard last night. “They asked me to do a full body shave in order to oil up,” he says. “I figured that for the BBC it was a step too far — I’ve never shaved my legs for television and I’m never going to.”

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Former MP and one-time Celebrity Big Brother contestant George Galloway is bracing himself for a hard-cheese Brexit: “Don’t Panic,” he tweeted last night. “If through EU perfidy we ‘crash out’ of the Bankers Club in March, we have been there before. If we run out of brie, we can always eat cheddar.” That’s comforting.

Elon's ex Talulah quickens pulses with details of her next novel

Amber Le Bon, model daughter of Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon, was enjoying the sunshine at the Flannels Summer Party on Saturday in Windsor. It wasn’t her first time in the area: she was one of the lucky few who attended the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in May. Models Betty Bachz and Eliza Cummings were also at this weekend’s event, held at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club.

At Ascot, Westworld actor Talulah Riley was attending the King George Weekend with Olympian Victoria Pendleton, presenter Kirsty Gallacher and tailor Patrick Grant. Riley, ex-wife of tech giant Elon Musk, is writing a dystopian fiction novel entitled The Quickening. “I was inspired after the US election, and I was thinking about if Hillary Clinton had won? She would be one of these global leaders, along with Angela Merkel and Theresa May. And what if having these women in charge turned out not to be a good thing?”

SW1A

A gaffe worthy of Boris: new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (below) referred to his Chinese wife, Lucia Guo, as Japanese during a conference in Beijing. “My wife is Japanese,” he said, then paused. “My wife is Chinese. That’s a terrible mistake to make.” In an attempt to salvage the situation, a panicked Hunt added: “My wife is Chinese and my children are half-Chinese and so we have Chinese grandparents.”

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Hove MP Peter Kyle, who is dyslexic, was subjected to primitive treatment as a child. “I was sent off to a quack therapist in London who made me wear a wooden contraption on my head every night after school,” he recalls.

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Wheatus, the US band famous for Teenage Dirtbag, have turned from pop to politics. “UK friends,” they ask on Twitter, “why does the UK Labour account have no mention of Brexit despite it being a world-wide trend and front-page news?” Wheatus for President.

Quote of the day

‘Millennials are all very sweet to me but I’ve read they’re all virgins’

Author Jilly​ Cooper is worried about the sex drive of the younger generation

Gladstone's revenge

More mess at the Treasury. Although Gladstone, its mousing cat, has a litter tray, we hear that when office staff are out at the weekends he “gets very stressed” and fouls the office... including some staffers’ desks. “It’s particularly bad after bank holidays, when no one is in the office for four days,” a source says. The cleaners don’t remove the mess because it’s not in their contracts, so Treasury mandarins have to do it themselves. The smell, we’re told, is “horrible.”